Independently financed, with a distribution deal done outside of the realm of Hollywood's normal process, Atlas Shrugged, the movie, has hit the theaters. The movie was finally released in 300 theaters (find your local showing here), the numbers so far this weekend are positive, and suggest it could possibly get picked up for wider distribution into perhaps 1000 theaters. For decades, the development of an Atlas Shrugged movie was mired in episodes of fits and starts, as rights changed hands multiple times, and major studios showed tepid interest, despite the book's historically monstrous sales numbers and the large cultural imprint it left in this country, in helping spread kind of strong message of freedom Atlas Shrugged presents.
The book sold approximately 160,000 copies per year, until Obama took office. Then it sold over 720,000 copies in 2008 and 2009, as Obama's rose to the oval office and completed the first year of his presidency. Freedom-loving individuals started seeing the horrors our president was unleashing upon us, and began searching for a better understanding of their own freedom. It sold over 500,000 in 2009 alone (but not in socialist France, where it's unofficially banned, boycotted by all the major French publishers).
If you'd like to help spread the message of freedom, participate in the free market, and take a skeptical or socialist friend to see Atlas Shrugged in the theater. Help keep it in theaters for a while so that others might have a chance to see what real freedom means. It's just "part 1" of a 3 part series of movies that will cover the whole story, and so far, it's fairly true to the book. Ironically, it was partially shot in Chicago.
The movie's release has increased the book's sales, and it is now #4 on Amazon.
The movie really makes clear the story's relevance to our contemporary political situation (which I like to call "Crony Socialism"), as did the Wall Street Journal back in 2009, in this piece called "From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years". And of course, as we would expect in this society that is divided into two classes, "The Ruling Class" and "The Country Class", there's an "enormous disconnect" between the critics' take on this movie, and that of the average viewer, who comes away pleased, informed, and inspired. Demand for tickets in some markets was "shockingly" high. Yet here we see a perfect example of the Hollywood media's basic ignorance and myopia all in one reviewer's comment about the movie:
Especially as former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan had been an ardent Randian, it's recently become easier than ever to blame contemporary economic ills on the fallout from her unregulated philosophy, even if the fiscal blundering of many governments provides equally persuasive arguments on the other side.
But one look at the Google Hits for "Atlas Shrugged" and you'll see it's at an all-time high. And here's a bit about how difficult it was to get this movie made.
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