Who Is John Galt? Brad Pitt, Apparently

According to Variety, he's slated to star in a Lions Gate film adaptation of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged opposite Angelina Jolie as Dagny Taggart. Which makes sense, given that millions of men already think of trains entering tunnels when they see Jolie. They're supposedly using a version of the script penned for the scrapped TNT miniseries of Atlas.

Comments

[chewy]

Who's playing Reardon? Billy Bob?

[sam]

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Do they have to use ...actors?

And just how are they going to handle some 300 pages of Russian Rantage? I just can't imagine Brad Pitt standing there ...for hours...simply jawing off a needlessly longwinded manifesto.

[thoreau]

When asked for a comment on the casting of Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston shrugged.

[David]

This is a joke, right? It's not even April 1.

[sam]

I have a strange desire to Atlas Shrugged done Bollywood style...lots of singing and dancing with at leaste one forbidden inter-caste romance thrown in for good measure.

[sam]

I have a strange desire to Atlas Shrugged done Bollywood style...lots of singing and dancing with at leaste one forbidden inter-caste romance thrown in for good measure.

[Jamie Kelly]

I want to see Pitt do the whole goddamned 50,000-word Galt-ologue. Plus I want to see how Hollywood handles the thematic material. Celebrating capitalism and material achievement isn't exactly the cornerstone ethic of Tinseltown. Maybe Pitt will play John Galt, the environmental lawyer who holds up the Green Earth on his shoulders but is constantly being attacked by the forces of profit.

[coarsetad]

Wow, a fantasy in which libertarians are hot! A joke? This maybe the best thing we have going for us!

[thoreau]

All jokes aside, I'm curious how they'll handle technology in the movie. Steel, copper, and railroads are of course important today (especially steel and copper), but they are hardly the foundations of of today's American economy. Will the characters still be leaders in those industries, or will they be leader in the computing, communications, and aviation sectors?

[Jennifer]

Sam's right; it would make a good musical. And you can sing "get the hell out of my way" to the tune of "Follow the Yellow Brick Road."

[coarsetad]

Wow, a fantasy in which libertarians are hot! A joke? This maybe the best thing we have going for us!

[sam]

Couldn't they just remake 'We The Living'? Its much better movie material...obviously.

[Pro Libertate]

With Antonio Banderas as Francisco d'Anconia. Dom DeLuise as Jim Taggert. Jim Carrey as Eddie Willers.

And George Clooney as Batman.

[John DeWitt]

Jolie as Dagny Taggart I can...sort of see.

But Pitt as John Galt? Brad Pitt? That empty-eyed pretty boy? He couldn't even play Achilles, and except for the superhuman strength and invulnerability and shit, he is Achilles. Pitt ought to play Rearden's younger brother.

Oh, Gary Cooper. Where have you gone? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you...

By the way, that line about Jolie and trains and tunnels was just about the funniest thing I've read today.

[Clean Hands]

Angelina Jolie as Dagny?

I think I just vomited up one of my nuts.

[smacky]

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are both trash, in my opinion. I am disappointed in the lead casting for this film. Especially since it will be all that much more difficult for me to convince one of my friends to go see the film with me, since I will be doing so halfheartedly.

[smacky]

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are both trash, in my opinion. I am disappointed in the lead casting for this film. Especially since it will be all that much more difficult for me to convince one of my friends to go see the film with me, since I will be doing so halfheartedly.

[Smappy]

Hollywood Executive's brain:

Hmmm . . . Angelina Jolie acting as willing sex toy for Antonio Banderas, Billy Bob Thornton, and Brad Pitt. It's box office GOLD!!

[davepotts]

Actually when you think about it, Atlas is a perfect story for Hollywood: self righteous, browbeating, long-winded, and moralizing, but not without it's own charm.

[davepotts]

Actually when you think about it, Atlas is a perfect story for Hollywood: self righteous, browbeating, long-winded, and moralizing, but not without it's own charm.

[davepotts]

Actually when you think about it, Atlas is a perfect story for Hollywood: self righteous, browbeating, long-winded, and moralizing, but not without it's own charm.

[dbcooper]

Any news on the director? Some great opportunities for set design and art direction here. Based on Gattaca, I think that Andrew Nichol would do a good job of capturing the look.

[James]

How much you wanna bet that the hollywood version will probably be an attack on Bush and the war on terrorism? V for Vendetta anyone? Also, I'm sure the pro-capitalist themes and liberal bashing will be toned down some.

[Pro Libertate]

Atlas Shrugged. Directed by John Carpenter. Kurt Russell as Hank Rearden. Rest of cast irrelevant. Unless Salma Hayek plays Dagny. That'd be okay.

Someday, we should figure out which stars would play the regular commenters here in a Hit & Run movie 🙂

[Number 6]

Please, god, no...

[dbcooper]

Any news on the director? Some great opportunities for set design and art direction here. Based on Gattaca, I think that Andrew Nichol would do a good job of capturing the look.

[Pro Libertate]

Atlas Shrugged. Directed by John Carpenter. Kurt Russell as Hank Rearden. Rest of cast irrelevant. Unless Salma Hayek plays Dagny. That'd be okay.

Someday, we should figure out which stars would play the regular commenters here in a Hit & Run movie 🙂

[Pro Libertate]

Atlas Shrugged. Directed by John Carpenter. Kurt Russell as Hank Rearden. Rest of cast irrelevant. Unless Salma Hayek plays Dagny. That'd be okay.

Someday, we should figure out which stars would play the regular commenters here in a Hit & Run movie 🙂

[The Real Bill]

Pitt? No, no, no! Jolie would be perfect as Dominique Francon in The Fountainhead.

[UtilityMaximizer]

Actually, it turns out that Mazda is John Galt.
http://www.autoblog.com/2006/04/26/mighty-morphin-tire-technology-on-mazda-rx-9/
Apparently they invented that device to draw electricity from the air.

[dbcooper]

Uma Thurman should be Dagny. Her or a random German business woman. They both have the look.

[R C Dean]

Someday, we should figure out which stars would play the regular commenters here in a Hit & Run movie 🙂

I see Jimmy Stewart playing thoreau.

Gilbert Gottfried does Jersey McJones.

William H. Macy is joe.

[smacky]

Someday, we should figure out which stars would play the regular commenters here in a Hit & Run movie 🙂

Pro Libertate,

We already did that a long time ago. Someobody had the audacity to suggest...(god, I don't even want to say it)...Tara Reid to play me. I swear, she is the trashiest person who managed to slither her way into Hollywood.

[mtc]

From the article:
" Jolie who's been a longtime devotee of Rand,"

whaaa?? maybe she can stop them from inevitably butchering it?

i'm no randroid but i think it would be good to see the book get a decent treatment--obviously a lot of work to be done in extracting a screen play from speeches upon speeches but i wouldn't say it's undoable to make something compelling (assuming you can be compelled by something derived from rand)

that's probably too much to hope so i humbly offer my prediction for director: Paul Verhoeven 😉

[dbcooper]

> " Jolie who's been a longtime devotee of Rand,"

Explains that gig with the UN.

[Gary Cooper's Ghost]

Oh, Gary Cooper. Where have you gone?

I'm in Sacred Heart Cemetery, Southampton, New York.

[thoreau]

In a movie version of H&R, several of the characters would be played by the same actor.

For some reason I see Stephen Colbert playing Stevo Darkly.

[Jesse Walker]

I was kinda hoping the Atlas Shrugged movie would be the Pauly Shore comeback we've all been waiting for.

[wayne]

Smacky,

It could be worse, you know, it might have been suggested that Bette Midler play you.

[smacky]

wayne,

I would take Bette Middler over that godawful Tara Reid any day.

[wayne]

S,

You might have a point. Bette is not the most appetizing woman I have ever seen, but she is funny and loud and brash. I think she might be a boat load of fun in bed and out. I am not sure Tara would be much fun in either place.

[Douglas Fletcher]

I just can't imagine Brad Pitt standing there ...for hours...simply jawing off a needlessly longwinded manifesto.

Why not -- that sounds like a pretty good description of half the scenes in JFK, the Donald Sutherland scene at the least, anyway.

[Steven Crane]

Who plays ME in this Hit & Run movie????

[smacky]

Who plays ME in this Hit & Run movie????

Paul Reubens, a.k.a. Pee Wee Herman

[smacky]

Steven Crane,

That wasn't very charitable of me...how about James Dean? Maybe Alan Cummings?

[Bazil]

OK, I'm speed reading Atlas Shrugged again starting tonight!

I have a feeling after Hollywood's done with it, I'll never look at it in the same way.

It's a shame too, I loved the damn book.

Although, Fountainhead was a lot more satisfying.

[Eric II]

David beat me to it - if not a joke, this seems to be straight out of a deeply bizaare bizaaro world. But in the off chance that such a high-budget act of surrealism is given the go-ahead, my guess is that the end result will bear more than a slight resemblance to the craptacular, sugar-coated, made-for-TV adaptation of Brave New World that NBC produced several years ago. Of course, Brave New World was a decent book to begin with, so there was at least an element of sacrilege in that case.

Given that Lions Gate is the rumored produced, maybe Mark Cuban has something to do with the project. His politics appear to be vaguely libertarianish, and this is precisely the kind of quixotic cash-burner that he's always thrilled to shell out for.

[jw]

So who plays Ragnar? Or Wyatt? They were the only ones in the book who had any balls.

[FatDrunkAndStupid]

Word out in the news today is that they are going to name their child "Africa". Africa Pitt.

[RandyAyn]

George W. Bush as James Taggart. Fucking perfect.

[Moncholo]

I dunno. I've come to regard Atlas Shrugged as a brilliant story idea with a strong point to make that was marred by 1) extended philosophical discussions that belonged in one of Rand's non-fiction books and 2) hefty doses of melodrama and cheesy-ass symbolism that belonged...well, nowhere.

Maybe if the book were hacked down into 2 1/2 to 3 hour movie, it would lose a lot of dead weight and actually turn out to be a good time. I mean, I'd be unhappy if the main point (capitalism good, collectivism bad) were dropped, but you can make that point very effectively given the main storyline.

And, FSM willing, it can be done without the characters going around drawing dollar signs in the air.

[Akira MacKenzie]

Edit: ...I could see it set in sort of...

[TCR]

Hulk Hogan for Ragnar and Terry O'Quinn as Wyatt. That's close to what I imagined anyway.

[uncle sam]

I think it should be done in some stylistic animation.

[Pro Libertate]

smacky, I see you as more of a, say, Minnie Driver. Tara Reid isn't worthy. Of course, I say this only having the vaguest idea of your appearance. You are female, right? 🙂

I want to be played by Peter Weller. He's got good science fiction credentials and he's a friggin' history professor. Yeah, he's too old, but it's all pretend, anyway. I just can't get over an actor being a Roman history scholar. I'd damned well get a PhD or two myself if I had that kind of money. What a shame so few celebrities elect to actually improve--as opposed to debase--themselves.

[KyleG]

Sweet! I'm reading the book this summer. I will proudly be stating that the book was, in fact, better.

[Pro Libertate]

uncle sam,

You mean like with Warner Brothers' characters? Bugs as John Galt, etc.? 🙂 You could also do Atlas Shrugged in South Park.

[eggzorcise]

This is interesting, I had heard a while ago that Brad Pitt was pushing hard to remake the Fountainhead, but I think it was more his love for architecture than anything to do with Ayn Rand. Pitt's love of architecture here
Odd that Jolie would like this book, as Ragnar is a pirate who steals (yes I know his reasoning) aid packages being sent to 3rd world countries...isn't Jolie all about aid to Africa?
And then I'm sure there will be those who call it (if properly put onto film) a celebration of terrorists, just like people did with V for Vendetta. Ahh, nothing I can do but wait to see, so that's what I reckon I'll do.

[Paul]

Some good casting ideas, courtesy of an IMDB user:

Hank Reardon - Jim Carrey
Eddie Willers - Carrot Top
Dagny Taggart - Paris Hilton
Ragnar Danneskj?ld - Verne Troyer
John Galt - Adam Sandler
Fransisco D'Anconia - Ricardo Montalban

(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480239/board/nest/40303250)

[uncle sam]

You mean like with Warner Brothers' characters? Bugs as John Galt, etc.? 🙂 You could also do Atlas Shrugged in South Park.

I'm thinking more in the style of graphic novels.

[Matt L]

Actually, it turns out that Mazda is John Galt.
http://www.autoblog.com/2006/04/26/mighty-morphin-tire-technology-on-mazda-rx-9/
Apparently they invented that device to draw electricity from the air.

That ain't right.

A Mazsa RX without a Wankel engine!

[Matt L]

Actually, it turns out that Mazda is John Galt.
http://www.autoblog.com/2006/04/26/mighty-morphin-tire-technology-on-mazda-rx-9/
Apparently they invented that device to draw electricity from the air.

That ain't right.

A Mazda RX without a Wankel engine!

[Rimfax]

Pitt can't possibly be a worse Galt than Gary Cooper was Roark. Cooper was a serious 2x4.

[Adriana]

Will there be vampires?

[Julian Sanchez]

I think I'm pretty much required to be played by Lukas Haas.

[coarsetad]

If Pitt goes back to his 12 Monkeys, Fight Club roots, and movie style resembles Dark City... it could be a very cool flick.

[TWC]

think of trains entering tunnels when they see Jolie

Smiles.

I always think she better not stick her head out the car window on the freeway because her lips are dang near gonna beat her to death.

SAM! I agree, We The Living, great stuff

[Larry]

Hollywood is going to celebrate another point of view? Say it ain't so!

[Larry]

Hollywood is going to celebrate another point of view? Say it ain't so!

[Kahn]

Hank Reardon - Jim Carrey

Nah. Nicholas Cage. No, Cage would probably make a better Eddie Willers.

Michael Douglas would be a better Reardon.

John Galt - Adam Sandler

No way. Sandler isn't that kind of intellectual when he plays one. Besides he's too short, Galt has to be tall. Galt's a stumper. Pierce Bronson?

Fransisco D'Anconia - Ricardo Montalban

He's too old by now, but he makes a perfect aristocrat. Banderas wouldn't be as good as Montalban.

This is a great thread.

[James Anderson Merritt]

For the 21st century, I thought movie adapters ought to take some poetic license and set the picture in the near future, after someone had invented and built-out a train-like alternative to the automobile that would revitalize railroading (or, at least, re-popularize fixed-guideway transportation). Such a development would at least be possible, and a 2050-era timeframe would make "rearden metal" and the invisible-from-the-air Gault's Gulch more plausible, whereas a completely faithful AS would have to take place in the mid-20th century of an alternate-universe.

Jolie is not Dagny Taggart, though I could see Pitt as Galt. Jodie Foster, circa Silence of the Lambs, would have been perfect. I think Banderas could do very well as D'Anconia. Who would be Cuffy Meigs? Or the co-opted head of the Science Academy? Tom Hanks or someone like him (Tom Everett Scott?) needs to be Willers. I like the idea of Kurt Russell as Rearden. Please do go on with the casting suggestions.

[ZenMasterThis]

I'll keep an open mind...

...but how could this possibly NOT suck?

[ZenMasterThis]

I'll keep an open mind...

...but how could this possibly NOT suck?

[Patricia Mathews]

Angelina Jolie? A poufy-lipped choppy-socky living action figure as Dagny? Who's going to lend her the requisite 100 IQ points?

Of course, I'm the one who always thought Jodie Foster would be the perfect lead for "I, Robot" (as Susan Calvin, fool, not as the robot!), and who did they cast? I have totally forgotten.

Yes, Fransisco is totally obvious - forget that one of his best roles was as a rapier-wielding kitten.

Shakes head ... one can always hope. Wanns bet Leonard Peikoff sues?

[godaddy]

This is the 21st century. One of the lead characters will certainly be recast for a black actor. I vote for Damon Wayans as Hank.

[dagny]

Unless Salma Hayek plays Dagny. That'd be okay.

She can play me any time 😉

[Ken]

I can see Angelina Jolie in her role. But then again I can see her reading the phone book, in the nude of course. Oh my, I'll be right back!

I think some of you are too hard on Pitt. Here is a guy who could have rode his good looks to the bank and back, but at least tries to make some artistic films (think of Fight Club, 12 Monkeys, Snatch, Oceans 11, etc.). This guy is trying, which is more than one can say of many actors/actresses.

The real problem will be that Atlas Shrugged just sucks,as a book or a movie. I'm not picking on Rand, I think We the Living is one of the best books around, but later in her life her artistic endevears became little more than constructions to voice her ever lengthy monologues on the evils of the bad and the wonders of the good. That rarely equals good art (for an example, check out the average Crash, filled with Prominent Social Messages vs. the much less political and much more artistic Magnolia by PT Anderson).

[John DeWitt]

Odd that Jolie would like this book, as Ragnar is a pirate who steals (yes I know his reasoning) aid packages being sent to 3rd world countries...isn't Jolie all about aid to Africa?

Yeah, but he's also just about the only character Dagny Taggart doesn't sleep with, so if Jolie takes the part that can be a sort of revenge...

(Trains...tunnels...tee hee...That'll fix his scandinavian ass...

[John DeWitt]

Odd that Jolie would like this book, as Ragnar is a pirate who steals (yes I know his reasoning) aid packages being sent to 3rd world countries...isn't Jolie all about aid to Africa?

Yeah, but he's also just about the only character Dagny Taggart doesn't sleep with, so if Jolie takes the part that can be a sort of revenge...

(Trains...tunnels...tee hee...That'll fix his scandinavian ass...

[John DeWitt]

Why, oh, why did that post twice? I absolutely only sent it once.

Confused...

[JD]

A long time ago, on a different forum, it was suggested that I should be played either by Jack Palance or by a young Dennis Hopper, and I could definitely go for either of those. Jack Palance obviously doesn't give a crap about the quality of the film he's in (Outlaw, anyone?), he just likes doing his thing.

My opinion of Brad Pitt has been going up. Lawrence Olivier he ain't, but he was good in Fight Club and Seven, and his role in Snatch was a hoot. Angelina...well, she's good-looking, although I'm more of an Uma fan anyway (who I think is a better actress too). But I cannot see the movie being anything other than - pardon me - a train wreck. Maybe if you wanted to make a 12-hour miniseries of it...

[Jason Ligon]

On the hotness of Angelina:

The tattoo-purged version you see on screen and in magazines is in the top 5 most attractive women on the planet.

The real version isn't in the top 20.

I can't help it. Tattoos are awful. They never help things, and the 'tasteful' ones only succeed in making beautiful women slightly less attractive rather than overtly biker chick hideous. Why? Whyyy?

[wellfellow]

Come on, Galt has to be played by Chuck Norris.

[smacky]

I can't help it. Tattoos are awful. They never help things, and the 'tasteful' ones only succeed in making beautiful women slightly less attractive rather than overtly biker chick hideous. Why? Whyyy?

Not but one hundred years ago in America the "tatooed woman" would be in a circus freak sideshow.

smacky, I see you as more of a, say, Minnie Driver. Tara Reid isn't worthy. Of course, I say this only having the vaguest idea of your appearance. You are female, right? 🙂

Yes, I am a female. But now that you mention it, I do think it would be pretty amusing if one of the Kids In The Hall played me in the H&R movie.

[mediageek]

Ragnar should have his own movie.

[mediageek]

And Jolie is all wrong for Dagney.

Dagney should be played by a woman who's tall and unconventionally attractive. (Uma Thurman would be a good pick. Put there's probably a couple others.)

As I recall, she was described as being kind of tall and harsh, not curvey.

[kwais]

Who could deliver Julian Sanchez's "No I am not going to have sex with you" line?

Who would play Cokelanth?

That might-could be, an oscar performance if done right.

[dhex]

oh man, it's time to make up the a is a shirts, ain't it?

(my plan: four people go, each one with a different character on their shirt and we chant "a is a!" at triumphant segments. because how can you not treat rand's fiction like a stuck-up manifestation of rocky horror?)

also:
"They never help things, and the 'tasteful' ones only succeed in making beautiful women slightly less attractive rather than overtly biker chick hideous. Why? Whyyy?"

that's easy: you have no taste!

[mediageek]

"oh man, it's time to make up the a is a shirts, ain't it?"

This is something that has always bothered me about Objectivism. For as ardently pro-capitalism as they are, there's a surprising lack of shwag and merch available.

[dhex]

stiff-necked prigs tend not to be too big on creativity.

an initial concept:
http://dhex.org/pics/aisa/aisa.gif

[Jennifer]

Who could deliver Julian Sanchez's "No I am not going to have sex with you" line?

Well, I'm not going to fuck you, if that helps. 😉

[NoStar]

Christina Ricci IS Dagny Taggart.

Brad Pitt is better suited to play James Taggart.
(Think of his early roles as pathetic whiners.)

[Number 6]

Perhaps we could do an Atlas/H&R mishmash. Rather than the "I swear by my life..." line, we could have Sanchez open the door to the power plant by proudly declaiming, I'm Not Going to Fuck You!

[Jennifer]

Rather than the "I swear by my life..." line, we could have Sanchez open the door to the power plant by proudly declaiming, I'm Not Going to Fuck You!

Actually, that could be the way the story is changed to fit modern times. Instead of railroads being the central issue, the story will take place in a future America where prostitution is not only legal, but subsidized by the government in an attempt to provide Equal Sexual Opportunity to people who are ugly or lacking in personality.

And John Galt is a nice-looking, if somewhat overdressed, male prostitute who makes millions of dollars in a single night because he's just that damned good, and when the government tries to make him fuck people for free he goes on live television and screams "I'm not going to fuck you!"

So what do y'all think? I think it's a damned good idea I never tried to get a job as a screenwriter.

[Isaac Bartram]

When I first read the book I though that Paul Newman and Fay Dunaway could play Galt and Dagny. Of course that time has past.

I changed my mind about thinking that Newman might refuse the roles on political grounds when I saw "Sometimes a Great Notion".

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067774/

And I do find Bette Midler attractive, and she has the advantage that I could hit on her without being accused of pedophilia by some Hit & Runners.

[Jennifer]

And I do find Bette Midler attractive, and she has the advantage that I could hit on her without being accused of pedophilia by some Hit & Runners.

Bette Midler is only 60 years old! That's far too young to make up her own mind about whether or not she's ready to have sex with someone. You, Isaac, are one sick fuck for wanting to take advantage of a girl too young to know any better.

[Number 6]

Jennifer- I like this one even better: Julian Galt is a brilliant fashion designer who is forced to design clothes for the sartorially mediocre. One day, his company has a meeting at which it the employees decide to change the color of the cuffs on a shirt JG designed. He storms out, promising to stop the motor of fashion. Over the years, great designers start to disappear, along with purveyors of pop culture goodness. Eventually, the world is reduced to living with bad music and bad clothes. There is a terrifying scene in which involves the wreck of a train full of leisure suits.
As for "I'm not going to fuck you!", it should be his rallying cry, but left as a non-sequiteur, just as when it was originally spoken.

[Jennifer]

Eventually, the world is reduced to living with bad music and bad clothes

No no no no no--humanity faces extinction, because all the non-Gulch fashion designers are so untalented that everybody has to wear clothes so unattractive that nobody wants to fuck anybody. So the government tries to persuade Julian Galt to design sexy clothes or at least have sex with a few women to keep the human race going, and that's when he says "I'm not going to fuck you."

I mean, really. We had bad music and bad clothes in the 1970s, and yet we survived.

[Eric II]

George W. Bush as James Taggart. Fucking perfect.

Better than perfect - that's brilliant. Maybe they can also get Rummy to play that doofus (Barry something?) who accidentally destroyed half the Midwest with some kind of sound ray gun.

Now that I think about it, this movie might not make such bad financial sense after all. Put Brad and Angelina in a film with a $30m budget, and at this point, you could turn a profit even if the damn thing happens to be about the intricacies of aboriginal wheat harvesting. Factor in the book's cult following and some of its kinkier scenes, and breaking even should be simple enough, provided that it doesn't get a Gigli-type vibe surrounding it.

[Isaac Bartram]

Bette Midler is only 60 years old! That's far too young to make up her own mind about whether or not she's ready to have sex with someone.

Actually she's slightly older than me so she would be taking advantage of my youth and naivete. And, yes, I'd let her, any day of the week. 🙂

[The Wine Commonsewer]

Besides, Bette Midler is a leftie fascist........

[Number 6]

Jennifer- Absolutely perfect. Now we just need to write up a treatment and find some people so we can have them contact imporant people's people. And it looks like Lucas Haas will be perfect for Julian's role. Perhaps we should screen test him-just have him say the line.
I'm envisioning a V for Vendetta style movie poster, with Julian Sanchez Galt's face superimposed above a crowd of poorly dressed horny polloi. The slogan? Well, of course it's, "I'm Not Going to Fuck You." In red, ragged letters.

[smacky]

Bette Midler is only 60 years old!

Perhaps she wouldn't be the best person to portray me in that case, seeing as I'm roughly a third of her age. Although I have been told I seem mature for my age...

[Isaac Bartram]

Besides, Bette Midler is a leftie fascist........

Aren't they all?

[Jennifer]

Number 6, I'm already picturing the trailer. We get the guy with the super-dramatic voice who has done every movie trailer for the past five decades, and it's something like this:

In a world. . . (shot of grimy street teeming with really ugly, badly dressed people)

. . .where nobody wants to fuck anybody. . . (shot of abandoned whorehouse with sign saying "Closed for lack of business")

. . .one man. . . (J. Sanchez Galt)

. . .had the courage to stop the libido of the world.

Dramatic montage: maternity ward with nary a baby in sight. Shot of the President in the Oval Office screaming "If we don't start fucking the terrorists have won!" Shot of railroad tunnel with NO TRAINS WHATSOEVER going into it.

[dagny]

And Jolie is all wrong for Dagney.

THERE IS NO "E" IN DAGNY! FOR GOD'S SAKE, GET IT RIGHT HERE IF NOWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD!

[Jeff P]

When the World SF convention was held in Atlanta (1989 I believe) the film schedule had listed Jim Henson's Atlas Shrugged. It had a full muppet cast with a synopsis and everything. I'm still looking for my copy of the write-up.
There's also Elvis Shrugged, the excellent comic from the 90s, with Maddonna, Prince, Little Richard, and others in key roles.

Shrugged, as a film/miniseries, would only work in a mythical/idealized 1950s. You can't shoehorn allegory into the modern world, Especially one that has no TV, interstate highway system, helicopters, or cold war. It's like when Mel Gibson threatened to make a Farhenheit 451 movie, only updated to include TV and Internet.

And what happened to the long-promised american remake of We the Living?

[Number 6]

Jennifer, that last post literally made me laugh out loud. All we need is to end it with the line being screamed, and something like the sound of breaking glass.

[Jeff P]

Jennifer's idea is good. Except for it to be truly Hollywood the trailer has to break into a montage of action sequences and pointless explosions edited to the tune of a classic rock song. And it has to be ironic. I'm thinking Locomotive Breath, or Train Train by Blackfoot.

[mediageek]

"THERE IS NO "E" IN DAGNY! FOR GOD'S SAKE, GET IT RIGHT HERE IF NOWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD!"

I was just testing you.

[Jennifer]

Except for it to be truly Hollywood the trailer has to break into a montage of action sequences and pointless explosions edited to the tune of a classic rock song. And it has to be ironic.

Since Elton John remade his Marilyn Monroe song for the late Princess Diana, maybe he could redo another one of his for the movie.

Blue balls. . . baby's got blue balls. . .

[smacky]

Jennifer's idea is good. Except for it to be truly Hollywood the trailer has to break into a montage of action sequences and pointless explosions edited to the tune of a classic rock song. And it has to be ironic. I'm thinking Locomotive Breath, or Train Train by Blackfoot.

Jeff,

You obviously haven't been keeping up with current Hollywood film trailers (to your credit). All montages of action sequences and pointless explosions are now choreographed to n? metal.

[Jennifer]

You obviously haven't been keeping up with current Hollywood film trailers (to your credit).

Reason number 4,927 why I consider myself lucky to have him. (Reasons number 1 through 1,826 involve the fact that he doesn't like sports.)

[Jennifer]

Good point, Number 6, I left out the most dramatic part. Here's the expanded trailer montage:

Maternity ward with nary a baby in sight. Shot of the President in the Oval Office screaming "If we don't start fucking the terrorists have won!" Shot of railroad tunnel with NO TRAINS WHATSOEVER going into it.

Shot of J.S. Galt screaming, "I'm not going to fuck you!" Shot of Dagny, without an 'E' but with a dildo, saying "Somehow, it's just not the same." Shot of frustrated man saying "I am harder than Rearden metal right now."

[Stevo Darkly]

No no no no no--humanity faces extinction, because all the non-Gulch fashion designers are so untalented that everybody has to wear clothes so unattractive that nobody wants to fuck anybody....

I mean, really. We [merely] had bad music and bad clothes in the 1970s, and yet we survived.

I like Jennifer's idea, but I must point out (in Randian fashion) that there is a flaw in your premise.

We had bad music and bad clothes in the 1970s -- but we also had more fucking during that decade than ever before or since.

[Stevo Darkly]

I wish to heap kudos on this line:

Which makes sense, given that millions of men already think of trains entering tunnels when they see Jolie.

(But saying so doesn't mean I want Sanchez to fuck me.)

[Stevo Darkly]

For some reason I see Stephen Colbert playing Stevo Darkly.

Hmm. Obviously spoken by somebody who hasn't actually met me. I guess he could play my online persona.

But in another forum, I recently decided that I would have to be played by Jack Black with a prosthetic nose based on Patrick Stewart's.

[Jennifer]

We had bad music and bad clothes in the 1970s -- but we also had more fucking during that decade than ever before or since.

Only because the bad music and bad clothes were offset by good drugs.

[mediageek]

"Only because the bad music and bad clothes were offset by good drugs."

So that's how that works...

[Jennifer]

So that's how that works...

How else do you think Nancy Spungen lost her virgin status?

[Number 6]

"Harder than Reardon Metal"...I'm so very glad I had swallowed my coffee before reading that line.

Random trivia-Nancy Spungen's cousin was my history teacher.

[JML]

I'd like to see Harrison Ford as Reardon. Although perhaps he's a tad too old these days, even for a role as "the older man"... Still, he has the right moody, quietly-suffering quality, and can flash anger well at the right time.

[Mike Laursen]

I have a strange desire to Atlas Shrugged done Bollywood style...lots of singing and dancing with at leaste one forbidden inter-caste romance thrown in for good measure.

That would be awesome. Especially with Shah Rukh Kahn as John Galt!