<p>
</p>
<p>Isn’t this sarcastic quip:
using contempt to put posters down? :rolleyes: Just wondering…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Don’t think it suffered from lack of A-list stars. Marketing strategy may have been bound by the available cash. The one benefit of the low budget production was that the plot was remarkably close to the book, which may very well have been different in a production with lots more money, and that often times tends to irk me. </p>
<p>The main problem was the lack of screens, and it wasn’t clear how long it would run at the two places that did show them. I’m sure a lot of people wouldn’t have bothered to go to a screening that was much further away from their hometown movie, and, at least on the first weekend, return a second time because the show was sold out. </p>
<p>As far as the book itself, I think the central thought of the way some in government work is indeed quite accurate. But her prose is a bit too long, and her pages and pages of solid text, sometimes not even separated into paragraphs makes it hard reading. “Cardboard characters” - if that means unreal/unnatural, I didn’t really feel that way; fiction is often better if characters aren’t all like next door neighbors.</p>
<p>I wondered about the marketing strategy because if you’re making part 1 of a trilogy, you’re usually going to need a strong showing to be able to release parts 2 and 3. But apparently the revenues in theaters are becoming less important, and DVD sales and foreign markets more so, in determining a movie’s financial success. I think midmo is right that there’s a selective audience for the film. Rand has her fans, as I said previously, and many of them are passionate (and some are more so).</p>
<p>Agree that fiction is often, even usually, better when the characters aren’t like the next door neighbors. I don’t think in terms of unreal/unnatural when I think of cardboard characters; I think of whether or not the author has convinced me they’re human. Even when a character is unremittingly nasty (Kate in East of Eden, for example), a good novelist (in my mind) sells me on their humanity. Otherwise I can’t get through the book.</p>
<p>@jym626, post 21 - think you nailed it.</p>
<p>Midmo – I’m suffering from ‘slicker shock’ myself…</p>
<p>Criticizing Ayn Rand for a very difficult and far from clear writing style is just the same as criticizing Stephenie Meyer for the same thing. People like her books in spite of it – something in them speaks to them, whether it is the political philosophy in Rand or the emotional philosophy in Meyer. A rational literary criticism (Meyer never met an adjective she didn’t like. Rand’s characters are more ‘Mary Sue’ than recognizably mortal.) is acceptable even if it is slightly (or very) contemptuous. We may wish the contempt invalided the critique but it does not. </p>
<p>It’s just that people aren’t running vampires for political office…not yet. I only object to the fictional ideal of Objectivism being used as a valid system – just as I’d object to Saruman running for President. </p>
<p>As for literary mark upon the world…well, my name isn’t Novelisto because I sell ice cream. I may not have sold in the millions…but I did okay and still sell books today. If you judge quality only by number of units shipped, Ray Kroc was a greater chef than Escoffier.</p>
<p>“IMDB also reports that the movie was released on 299 screens in those 80 markets and took in about $5600 per venue. Maybe that’s good for a small release. rottentomatoes gives it 7 percent from the critics but 85 percent from the audience. So they weren’t listening to us here - whew!”</p>
<p>Does that mean that “objectivistically” it was a bust?</p>
<p>No mini. It means it was not a bust…based on the observations of even those who didn’t want it to succeed.</p>
<p>[How</a> ‘Atlas Shrugged’ Shocked Hollywood’s Marketing Machine - The Hollywood Reporter](<a href=“http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/how-atlas-shrugged-shocked-hollywoods-179930]How”>How ‘Atlas Shrugged’ Shocked Hollywood’s Marketing Machine – The Hollywood Reporter)</p>
<p>People are going to the polls any way they can.</p>
<p>Yes, but “objectivistically”, it just hasn’t done very well. (I have no horse in this race.) I mean the last independent film I remember seeing - Juno - made $53 million in five weeks. Probably not any endorsement of teen sex, though.</p>
<p>(Though I have always appreciated Ayn Rand’s embrace of free love, homosexuality, and her distaste for the marriage convention.)</p>
<p>Thanks for an informative link! I’m not going to see the film, but I admire the guts of a producer who puts his own money into a project to the tune of many millions, thereby disregarding Max Bialystock’s two rules of producing:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Never put your own money in the show.</p></li>
<li><p>NEVER PUT YOUR OWN MONEY IN THE SHOW!</p></li>
</ol>
<p>(since we seem to be headed off-topic anyway)</p>
<p>I didn’t know until I went to Rotten Tomatoes that this film is based only on the first 10 Chapters. Yikes. </p>
<p>The question is ‘will the movie have legs’? Will it spread beyond the population of people who are already interested in seeing it to the population who have no pre-conceived ideas about it? Word of mouth will be very important. </p>
<p>Compared to Jane Eyre – another indie film made from a well-known book with a specialized audience – Wikipedia reports: opening in limited release on four screens on March 11, 2011, Jane Eyre grossed $182,885, for a per theater average of $45,721[1] – the best specialty debut of 2011 to date.[25] As of April 22, its estimated total stood at $7,119,999.[1]</p>
<p>That was on <em>4</em> screens for opening weekend. Let’s see how A.S. does in a month. </p>
<p>And I still haven’t seen Jane Eyre! Darn, darn, darn! It takes forever to bring indie movies to this town…and it’s a college town!</p>
<p>mini, she didn’t support laws prohibiting homosexual relationships, but she did call homosexuality immoral, and worse. She apparently didn’t write much about homosexuality (just doing a little net surfing on a slow afternoon here, so my research isn’t anything to bet on). According to the Objectivism Resource Center, one of her rare recorded remarks on the subject was this, during a lecture in 1971:
</p>
<p>When this was written, the “live and let live” attitude from someone who was, what, 80 years old, was rather forward thinking. (You don’t want to know what some Democrats were saying in 1971).</p>
<p>As for the politics of Jane Eyre, well, I prefer Juno.</p>
<p>And as for marriage…</p>
<p>“I consider marriage a very important institution, but it is important when and if two people have found the person with whom they wish to spend the rest of their lives—a question of which no man or woman can be automatically certain. When one is certain that one’s choice is final, then marriage is, of course, a desirable state. But this does not mean that any relationship based on less than total certainty is improper. I think the question of an affair or a marriage depends on the knowledge and the position of the two persons involved and should be left up to them. Either is moral, provided only that both parties take the relationship seriously and that it is based on values.”</p>
<p>In other words, get the gov’t out of the bedroom.</p>
<p>She also thought Christianity to be both gross and a fraud.</p>
<p>Both 40 years ago and today, I have always thought of Ayn Rand as a case of adult-onset adolescence. But free love has its attractions…</p>
<p>The movie didn’t get wide release because, quite frankly, it sucked. Don’t take it from me - conservative commentator PJ O’Rourke said it was a total debacle.</p>
<p>From PJ:</p>
<p>"Atlas shrugged. And so did I.</p>
<p>The movie version of Ayn Rand’s novel treats its source material with such formal, reverent ceremoniousness that the uninitiated will feel they’ve wandered without a guide into the midst of the elaborate and interminable rituals of some obscure exotic tribe.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, members of that tribe of “Atlas Shrugged” fans will be wondering why director Paul Johansson doesn’t knock it off with the incantations, sacraments and recitations of liturgy and cut to the human sacrifice.</p>
<p>Upright railroad-heiress heroine Dagny Taggart and upright steel-magnate hero Hank Rearden are played with a great deal of uprightness (and one brief interlude of horizontality) by Taylor Schilling and Grant Bowler. They indicate that everything they say is important by not using contractions. John Galt, the shadowy genius who’s convincing the people who carry the world on their shoulders to go out on strike, is played, as far as I can tell, by a raincoat.</p>
<p>The rest of the movie’s acting is borrowed from “Dallas,” although the absence of Larry Hagman’s skill at subtly underplaying villainous roles is to be regretted. Staging and action owe a debt to “Dynasty”—except, on “Dynasty,” there usually was action.</p>
<p>In “Atlas Shrugged–Part I” a drink is tossed, strong words are bandied, legal papers are served, more strong words are further bandied and, finally, near the end, an oil field is set on fire, although we don’t get to see this up close. There are many beautiful panoramas of the Rocky Mountains for no particular reason. And the movie’s title carries the explicit threat of a sequel.</p>
<p>But I will not pan “Atlas Shrugged.” I don’t have the guts. If you associate with Randians—and I do—saying anything critical about Ayn Rand is almost as scary as saying anything critical to Ayn Rand. What’s more, given how protective Randians are of Rand, I’m not sure she’s dead…"</p>
<p>(to be fair, I haven’t seen it, and hadn’t planned on it) (But I thought this review was funny! <a href=“http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110414/REVIEWS/110419990[/url]”>http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110414/REVIEWS/110419990</a></p>
<p>It is a little scary that fans of the book and the author cannot seem to understand that a bad movie is a bad movie regardless of the source material. The reaction reminds me very much of when Battlefield Earth – please don’t waste your valuable time and brain cells! – came out and was universally panned by everyone except the Scientologists. It got a 2% on Rotten Tomatoes. At least Atlas is getting 6%!</p>
<p>The majority of comments on the reviews are attacking the reviewer for not worshiping blindly at the shrine of Rand. It cannot be that the movie is bad, the script absurd, and the direction weak. It must be a plot to keep people away. That’s a little weird.</p>
<p>Well, think of it more like a political rally, where people find their people. Sort of like a Palin rally. Except to be fair, Rand, with her anti-Christian, pro-free-love, anti-militarist screed, shouldn’t be compared with Palin.</p>
<p>Take dropped to $879,000 this weekend, and only $1,890 per showing. It’s toast.</p>
<p>The movie got made because somebody put up private money for it. It had trouble in Hollywood because the Rand people didn’t want it to be compromised.</p>
<p>I haven’t seen it, so I can’t really evaluate it, but I did read “Atlas Shrugged” and it’s a very poorly written book. It appeals to adolescents because all teenagers like to think they are misunderstood supermen. (This is also why I liked the novels of Robert A. Heinlein as a teenager.)</p>
<p>Wasn’t a movie made of “The Fountainhead” starring Gary Cooper?</p>
<p>
Totally agree. And I would lump Catcher in the Rye with it. Hated that book, was required to read it and so were both of my daughters. My son’s up next year.</p>
<p>
There was, in 1949, directed by King Vidor and with a screenplay by Rand herself. It’s pretty campy today, but the relationship between Cooper and Patricia Neal sizzles, in large part because they were having a sizzling real-life affair at the time. The villains are pretty Snidely Whiplash, and Raymond Massey is over-the-top. This one was certainly more commercially successful than AS has a chance of being because of the A-list stars and production values.</p>
<p>According to the NYPost – one of the few papers to give Atlas Shrugged a decent review – the movie is now at the point where the producers will have to write checks in advance to get it to more screens. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t hold my breath for the sequels…though there is always Direct-to-Video.</p>