I heard about it from the Mark Levin Show last week, when Sean Hannity appeared and said he had seen the movie and it was terrific.
John Aglialoro bought the movie rights to Atlas Shrugged from Ayn Rand’s estate in 1992 and for nearly 20 years has tried to get a Hollywood movie studio to produce it.
They say it’s because they didn’t think it would do well as a movie. Of course, why would we think anything different? We all know Hollywood is a melting pot of political diversity. Even though Hollywood elitists are Marxists at heart and this book is a devastating indictment of Marxism and it was ranked by a Library of Congress survey as the second most influential book of all time, Hollywood types would not be afraid of that. They love honest exchanges of ideas.
No. The book only sold 6 million copies, so clearly the movie would be a flop.
Anyway, 95 to 99% of the people haven’t even heard of this movie yet, so it should be fairly easy getting seats to it. Even if there is only one theater in the Phoenix valley showing it – the Harkins Valley Art theater in Tempe, there wouldn’t be many people there. My wife and I decided not to go on opening night, but to hit the 8:50 showing on Saturday.
We drove up to the theater at 8:10. There was no clearly no need to go that early. Reviews by critics were panning the movie, so crowds would be sparse. But it was a leisurely evening for us, so why not.
Well, when we got there we saw a waiting line for the show that went out the door of the theater, down the block, and around the corner. We gave up and decided to see Soul Surfer instead. We’ll hit Atlas Shrugged next week because there surely won’t be anyone else wanting to see it.
Could it be that the critics and movie producers have let their judgment be clouded by their fears that this movie might actually be not only a hit but very effective in attacking the foundations of Marxism? No, no, there has to be some other explanation. Marxists are people who believe passionately in freedom of expression and an open marketplace of ideas. At least that’s what they keep telling us.
Atlas Shrugged: Part I was the top-grossing limited release of the weekend, generating an estimated $1.7 million at 300 single-screen locations. 🙂
Comment by David Hall:
Just think what it would have done if it had actually been promoted by the theaters.
Here’s a link if you want to read more about Atlas Shrugged.