Even though a trailer for the motion picture “Atlas Shrugged Part 1“– based on Ayn Rand’s Objectivist opus– wowed ’em at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, the film itself is bombing at the box office.
And in true Randian fashion, its producer is threatening to go on strike.
Los Angeles Times movie blogger Rebecca Keegan writes:
Twelve days after opening “Atlas Shrugged: Part 1,” the producer of the Ayn Rand adaptation said Tuesday that he is reconsidering his plans to make Parts 2 and 3 because of scathing reviews and flagging box office returns for the film.
“Critics, you won,” said John Aglialoro, the businessman who spent 18 years and more than $20 million of his own money to make, distribute and market “Atlas Shrugged: Part 1,” which covers the first third of Rand’s dystopian novel. “I’m having deep second thoughts on why I should do Part 2.”
“Atlas Shrugged” was the top-grossing limited release in its opening weekend, generating $1.7 million on 299 screens and earning a respectable $5,640 per screen. But the the box office dropped off 47% in the film’s second week in release even as “Atlas Shrugged” expanded to 425 screens, and the movie seemed to hold little appeal for audiences beyond the core group of Rand fans to whom it was marketed.
…..
The novel, a sacred text among many conservatives for Rand’s passionate defense of capitalism, takes place at an unspecified future time in which the U.S. is mired in a deep depression and a mysterious phenomenon is causing the nation’s leading industrialists to disappear or “strike.”
But then again, as Andrew Murphy notes:
Isn’t blaming others for one’s own failure what “moochers” do? I guess he didn’t know his subject matter like he thought.
