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When I last checked on the project to turn Ayn Rand’s mammoth Atlas Shrugged into a feature film, Stephen Polk was excitedly discussing how he would realize a dream by coming out of nowhere to direct the film on June 11th. Well, the movie made its start date, but Polk is on the outside looking in. It’s One Tree Hill star Paul Johansson directing and starring among a low-wattage cast, considering that Angelina Jolie and Charlize Theron each seriously flirted with playing protagonist Dagny Taggart. (Now that role will be played by Taylor Schilling.)
Polk tells me he was devastated to be replaced just two weeks before production started, and even more so when a Variety announcement today omitted him completely, even as a producer. Polk isn’t shrugging this off. He has hired an attorney and predicts litigation in the near future. He said he could tell things were going awry when the budget began climbing as he tried to do justice to the book. “I had some real names seriously interested, but it had to be a real feature film, and I feel like I had the rug pulled out from under me,” Polk said. “When we talked about cast, even B-list cast, they were like, ‘we don’t need names.’ It was great material, people were interested, but there were red flags. It’s devastating to me. They replaced me with a TV actor, this has TV written all over it. They’ve fired other people. I was trying to embrace the spirit of Atlas Shrugged, and it will be interesting to see if they can still pull it off.”
It’s the first of what’s envisioned as a 4-film adaptation of the iconic book that Hollywood has been trying to film for decades. Maybe this will be a fine movie, but it would not be the first time a producer made a cut-rate placeholder version with hopes of doing a more ambitious film later.
It’s the first of what’s envisioned as a 4-film adaptation of the iconic book that Hollywood has been trying to film for decades.
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Ugh. This film is going to be bomb hard.
So…is it too early to refer to this production as a “Scy Fy Original”?
Polk …
You got one thing right….Paul’s done tv, The part that was missing was that ..Paul has won 3 emmy’s for a film he wrote and directed…., he has also appeared in 13 feature films..
at last count your credit , was having a famous father..
In working with Johansson he’s an amazing leader and talented visionary…If anyone can make it happen, its Johansson.
Pity-party for Polk? Ugh, the whole TV/Film hierarchy is so outdated. I laugh when I hear this. Half the TV shows I see blow the block busters out of the water. This could be a great project. It seems arrogant and ignorant to condemn this project before anyone has seen anything.
Taylor Schilling? Heck yeah!
That’s the best news of the week! She absolutely made Mercy must-see TV (with a huge helping hand from Michelle Trachtenburg). I was always captivated by Schilling’s Veronica, and she’s got the poise and the eyes to pull this off.
Angelina really would have been great for this part, but Taylor is quite exciting (and a better choice than Charlize).
The rest? Eh, we’ll see. To me, this novel should always have been a multi-part prestige HBO miniseries.
Talked to a friend who briefly flirted with this project. It’s, of course, a place holder so the rights don’t revert. The producer / exercise guru has no idea what the hell he’s doing, if this even gets completed it will be a miracle.
Wait, is it the first of what’s envisioned as a 4-film adaptation of the iconic book that Hollywood has been trying to film for decades?
Poor Ayn Rand.
Ayn Rand would reject your pity on principal. (Or, at least, she SHOULD, or else she’d be a hypocrite).
I hope it’s great
In recent years television productions have been more interesting and innovative than silver-screen productions, e.g., 24, Lost, True Blood, Sopranos. So “TV written all over it” isn’t the pejorative intended.
He got “Raynded”. The money weasels can say they are capitalists and are doing the best for their investment and nobody can stiffle them.
This is how believers of this BS (who should’ve outgrown this claptrap after hitting 14) operate.
-G.
Atlas should be a movie like Gone With The Wind, only better and longer, say with two intermissions for example.
Better than Gone With The Wind would be difficult to do I know but it should be and if it can’t be don’t do it until it can.
although the novel is around 700 pages, i always a film adaptation could be done in 100 minutes!
Rand repeats the same speeches over and over.
Get to the basics and you could do a tightly paced, exciting movie.
4 movies?!?!?! Disaster awaits…
All you haters out there, Paul Johannson has been working steadily in Hollywood for the past 20 years. His work ethic and passion mirrors the likes of ‘Hank Rearden’ & ‘Dagny Taggart’. As to how and why he is on Atlas Shrugged…he was referred to the project by Nick Cassevettes. Why? “Because nobody in this town knows Ayn Rand better than he”. Moreover, he came on to the project with 2 weeks prep time and a very inexperienced production team. If anybody can pull it off, it is Paul Johannson.
P.S. – given the magnitude of this book, what it stands for, and the fact that they are making this an ‘indy’ with no stars, I would hope that people would wish the production well instead of being so bitter. With all the bad crap happening in the world (Gulf spill, crashed economy, middle east conflict, etc), some positive input might be nice. Go Team Paul!!!
This now sounds like a TV movie. Who is Taylor Schilling? No one cares. I doubt she has the talent to put it off.
Chill out Brangelina. I’m sure WANTED 2 will go into production soon.
No, it’s the first of what’s envisioned as a 4-film adaptation of the iconic book that Hollywood has been trying to film for decades. The fourth movie will be a three-hour rendition of the seventy-page speech Galt gives at the end of the book.
It would be funny if the egregious mismanagement of our economic system by Alan Greenspan (a True Believer of Rand’s satire of a philosophy) made it impossible to get the funding to put this turkey onscreen.
I met on this project in May to be one of the production keys, they were 4 weeks out and still had no crew or cast. The Producers said they had to start principal photography by June 15th. Their script read like a $50 mil. feature and was so completely disconnected from their $1 mil. budget that alarm bells went off as soon as I read it, knowing the legacy of this property I had to take the meeting just to see what kind of scam this must be.
I found out in the meeting that they indeed had the rights to produce this and director Stephen Polk was working for the rights owner John Agialoro, it still didn’t add up and I couldn’t believe they would push this through with so many unknowns. Given the budget, the team assembled, the schedule, everything pointed to this being a last minute frantically built trojan horse to extend the rights. Who ever got this job would likely be killing themselves for nothing so instead of pitching myself I did due diligence and asked hard practical questions about the logistics of the production first. After some attempts to convince me they indeed had a plan the meeting was suddenly terminated. John Aglialoro (right’s owner) was holed up at Shutter’s in Santa Monica and had his company attorney Harmon Kaslow working as the Producer in Venice. It was clear from his responses that Kaslow has no idea as to how production works and he’s the one in charge. He made suggestions to cut costs that were so naive it was clear they were willing to sacrifice anything to save their investment. When I asked how they planned to execute the more ambitious scenes in their script they said they planned to get all the keys together over the weekend and everyone would pitch ideas to make it more realistic for production and then they would shoot whatever that was. I could hear Ayn Rand rolling over in her grave and a voice in my head calling out: “If it’s not on the page…don’t engage”. RUN. I wished them luck and now thankful every time I read one of these articles that I am not involved…Stephen Polk should be too, we dodged the train wreck that opens the movie on page one…
You didn’t get the job – don’t go away mad – just go away…
they should just hire Tommy Wiseau to direct and call it “The Room 2″.. i guarantee it will make more money than whatever this version is
I’m excited that Taylor Schilling will be in this film. She was amazing in Mercy. She’ll be great as the Atlas lead. Hooray!!!
Taylor Schilling was the greatest actress on TV this season !!
So it’s a good news
I see “Criminal Minds’” Thomas Gibson as Hank Rearden and I see Naomi Watts as Dagny.
The current financial crises illustrate what claptrap Atlas Shrugged really is. The feebleminded who admire the book and try to suggest it predicts todays economic disaster ignore that the current recession/depression is precisely about greed and the cult of “making money justifies all that Rand preached.
The book is more comical than profound, and any movie of it will be a bomb, of interest only to Rand fanatics who think it has any resemblance either to reality or reason.
prichard
I loved this movie and have no idea if the other director would have done any better. The cast was great and my family enjoyed it very much. Angelina Jolie would have been the best Dagny Taggart but Taylor Schilling was perfect in her role. The film did not have a big budget so no Angelina.