Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged Part II: Behind the Scenes

ReasonTV visited the set of Atlas Shrugged Part II, the second installment in the new film adaptation of Ayn Rand's epic 1957 novel. The movie is set to hit theaters on October 11, 2012.

About 1.30 minutes. Shot by Sharif Matar and Tracy Oppenheimer and edited by Joshua Swain.

Read Brian Doherty's account of the filming here.

Check out Reason's ever-growing playlist of videos related to Ayn Rand and the continuing interest in her life and work. The videos feature interviews and commentary from Nathaniel Branden, Barbara Branden, Yaron Brook, David Kelley, Robert Poole, biographers Anne C. Heller and Jennifer Burns, and many more.

Read Reason on Ayn Rand.

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Comments

[Fatty Bolger]

At this rate, part three will feature a cast pulled from your local dinner theater.

[BMFPitt]

Part III will be able to save a few bucks on production value, since it's biggest scene will be 45 minutes of a guy standing at a podium in front of a green screen.

[NotSure]

Some books should and can never be made into a movie, this is one of them, not that I am hostile to the book, but its like trying to make "Utopia" or "Paradise Lost and Found" into a movie, bad idea.

[RedDragon6009]

So I shouldn't waste $2.99 renting it on On Demand?

[heavystarch]

The first one was really hard to sit through. I mean really hard...

[Bill]

My wife was outraged it was so bad. But she was not a big fan of the books either.

I thought it was ok in places. It is a hard book to bring to the screen and they did it on a budget.

I would give it a 3.5 out of 10 but I'm still glad they made it. Maybe they'll learn from mistakes and make the 2nd one better. Maybe in the future someone will make a mini-series and learn what not to do.

I just hope they get a new actor for Hugh Atkinson. That guy was a douche.

[Tonio]

I couldn't get through Part I. Tedious polemic. Rand had some good ideas, but packaged them terribly. Her own personal flaws also limited her effectiveness as a messenger.

[Pro Libertate]

I'd do it as an HBO series, with extra sex and violence inserted here and there gratuitously. Oh, and I'd cast Sean Bean as someone who dies.

[Res Publica Americana]

Can James Caan play a temperamental gangbanger?

[Fist of Etiquette]

SPOILER ALERT.

You know, Starz serieses also show titties from time to time. Some would argue better quality ones than HBO.

[Pro Libertate]

Game of Tycoons.

[Bill]

Showtime can hang with the best of them. Check out the roller derby girl in the last episode of Weeds!

[NotSure]

They try to stuff so many gratuitous sex scenes into HBO, that one gets more shocked when there is no gratuitous sex scene.

[Pro Libertate]

My reaction, exactly.

[Lost_In_Translation]

They fill those scenes with gratuitous violence.

If neither sex nor violence is called for in the scene, gratuitous foul language must suffice.

[Pro Libertate]

We can therefore we must.

[John]

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/l.....tent=Local

Why make the movie, when we all live the reality every day?

My God Bloomburg is a sick fuck.

[RedDragon6009]

Of course he wants more women breast feeding... that way he can regulate when and where they are allowed to pull out their boobs and feed their babies.

[Mr. Soul]

...and what they put into their bodies, afterall 2nd hand fat is bad for the baby.

[RedDragon6009]

Even more diabolical than I thought.

[SugarFree]

Hey! Samantha Mathis is alive!

"I'm the 'Eat me, beat me' lady."

[Caleb Turberville]

Hasn't her career been one long personal regret centered around October 31, 1993?

[SugarFree]

That and Broken Arrow.

[Scotticus Finch]

Hers were the first boobies I ever saw outside of National Geographic.

Looking back, I'm surprised there wasn't more eyebrow-raising, since she was supposed to be a high school kid. I remember that causing fainting spells after American Beauty.

[SugarFree]

Most of that was because Thora Birch was 16 when her scenes were filmed.

[robc]

Michelle Johnson was 17 when Blame it on Rio was filmed.

That was full frontal, while Birch was only breasts, IIRC.

[Xenohippus]

I'm honored to have been chosen for a small part as Random Moocher #3 - so excited!

[Jeff P.]

I will not watch any adaptation unless Blackfoot's "Train Train" is playing over the Galt Line sequence.

[Brandybuck]

I finally got around to watching part one this weekend. My review:

I think they did a very good job capturing the feel of the novel. They were very true to Ayn Rand's creation. Unfortunately they were too true to it. The production values were good, acting was average to above average, the director managed to keep the level of drama high. But just like the novel, the characters were flat caricatures. The heroes were indistinguishable from left wing stereotypes of conservatives, and the "moochers" were indistinguishable from right wing stereotypes of liberals.

One big problem though was the anachronism of the trains. It would have worked a lot better if the movie had been placed in the alternate 1950s of the novel, or by replacing the trains with another industry more relevant to the present.

And of course there was Ayn Rand's simplistic philosophy of selfishness throughout. When Hank Rearden says he won't sell his business "Because it's mine! Mine!", he comes across as a cheap mimeograph of Howard Roark (Ayn Rand's hero in The Fountainhead).

[Xenohippus]

Rearden SUVs. A gleaming sea of SUVs traveling from exurb to exurb along sparkling toll roads!

[Bill]

Since many people (wrongly) think we need trains in US and it's constantly discussed but never accomplished I think the idea of super trains was fine.

CA just voted in favor of it, so it is "the future" in CA. Pols are still discussing trains in NE, Midwest corridor, and even in the south.

And it was trains in the book after all.

[alex griggs]

Still better than Newsroom.

[Graphite]

David Kelley's bouffant is getting taller as the years go by.

[The Derider]

Anybody want to make predictions on how much money this one will lose?

The last one lost 15 million, or 75% of production costs. I'm guessing the same ratio will hold true here.

Which means that as long as the producers spend less than 15 million, this will be the most successful "atlas shrugged" film yet, even if nobody sees it.

[TingRooo]

Sometimes you jsut gotta jump up in the air nad shout, Whos your Daddy!

http://www.Anon-Go.tk

[Lucretio]

Hopefully the producers hand out cyanide pills, so the audience can all commit collective suicide rather than sit through the entire movie.

[cthorm]

Son of a bitch they cast Esai Morales as Francisco D'Anconia?

This almost makes up for the teeth-kicking act of cancelling Caprica.

[robc]

I enjoyed the first one.

As did most of the people in the theatre with me.