IT'S HAPPENING: Atlas Shrugged Television Series
At the start of the year, Atlas Shrugged Producer John Aglialoro hinted at the potential for an Atlas Shrugged mini-series ( http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts... ). Last week, John made a trip to Hollywood and met with... some very interested MAJOR players.
How does a full blown television series sound!?
Yep. It's really happening. We can't say too much just yet, but suffice it to say, John's meetings in Hollywood were VERY productive and the groups we're talking to are incredibly enthusiastic and ready to move mountains to make it happen. We should hopefully have something official to announce within the next few weeks so stay tuned.
As the project progresses, we're going to be reaching out to you for your opinion from time to time.
This would be one of those times.
Keep in mind, certain people who are not active in the Gulch, but very interested in your opinion, will be reading your comments on this post.
Got it? Good. Here we go...
Should the Atlas Shrugged television series be a period piece set in the 1950s or should it take place, as Ayn Rand alluded to, "the day after tomorrow?"
P.S. Because it worked so well for us with the trilogy, of course we have every intention of changing the entire cast every episode. No. No, we won't.
How does a full blown television series sound!?
Yep. It's really happening. We can't say too much just yet, but suffice it to say, John's meetings in Hollywood were VERY productive and the groups we're talking to are incredibly enthusiastic and ready to move mountains to make it happen. We should hopefully have something official to announce within the next few weeks so stay tuned.
As the project progresses, we're going to be reaching out to you for your opinion from time to time.
This would be one of those times.
Keep in mind, certain people who are not active in the Gulch, but very interested in your opinion, will be reading your comments on this post.
Got it? Good. Here we go...
Should the Atlas Shrugged television series be a period piece set in the 1950s or should it take place, as Ayn Rand alluded to, "the day after tomorrow?"
P.S. Because it worked so well for us with the trilogy, of course we have every intention of changing the entire cast every episode. No. No, we won't.
Should the Atlas Shrugged television series be a period piece set in the 1950s or should it take place, as Ayn Rand alluded to, "the day after tomorrow?"
Definitely "the day after tomorrow". It will be much more interesting to many more people if it takes place today (or starting with the 2008-09 financial crises and government interventions) to in the near future. In fact, show some background of how the housing bubble-collapse was caused by government intervention in the housing market (FMAC, FNMA, Banking Regs, etc). Continue through Government trying to solve the problems they created with ever more intrusive and larger government, and how all that failed. And of course, the unconstitutional measure of forcing people to buy an insurance product against their will. More viewers will engage if they can relate to the story and the characters. 1950s won't do that.
A quality Atlas Shrugged series can be done within reasonable budget targets if the right people are at the helm.
Maybe they could concentrate on rebuilding after the crash, which is where as left off
What great news to start the weekend!
Let us know how we can get the word out.
"Should the Atlas Shrugged television series be a period piece or should it take place, as Ayn Rand alluded to, 'the day after tomorrow?'"
My standard reply to these type of questions follows:
Why not both?
A period piece set in "the day after tomorrow": look at how well the "steam-punk" genre performs.
Db says keep it as close to the actual story as possible with entertainment value has to trump philosophical content without negating the philosophy.
2. Since you joked about the cast changes, I am going to comment, even though you did not ask a question about it. Please, please, PLEASE, I am begging you on selfish, individualistic knees, do NOT change the cast. Lock those actors in by contract for the duration of the ENTIRE mini-series. Oh... by "the cast", I mean whatever cast you hire at the onset of the mini-series. I am not suggesting you specifically use the cast of any of the 3 trilogy movies.
She played Karen Andre in a local southern California production of Night of Jan 16th, and even in this liberal environment, managed to get rave reviews.
Her problem is the reverse. So maybe there are more like her out there. It's a big country. All those wannabees who cannot get hired by liberal Hollywood, may flock to ASTMS.
This is great news.
It seems to me that you should want to appeal to the largest possible audience. You also should want to make the story feel as real today as possible.
My understanding of the viewership age distributions suggests that you would want something that does not generate interest based on nostalgia but something that will make the anticipated collapse feel real. Huge numbers of people were not yet born in 1950s. Consider Dagny running an airline if that is what it takes. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with making it a 1950s story. But, PLEASE, hire absolutely that best screenplay writer that you can get interested in the project and pay them what their worth is. The whole project does not have to be narrowly time specific. It's the fundamental story of people's characters and actions (or inactions) in a social turmoil not too far from ours presently. It's the first class visual story telling and first class personality portrayals that will sell the whole story (and DVD, oops! - Blu-ray disks.) After all, the book still sells very well.
Look at the success of Downton Abbey. First class writing plus first class acting plus first class cinematography successful TV series make. Meticulous scenery composition and costumes as a bonus. A Universal affiliate in England produced it, I think. Perhaps Universal could get interested and let you learn from their success.
The moochers and the looters do not need to be caricatures. There are plenty of politicians and others on TV recordings to use as models.
Just my opinions. I will commit right now to purchase all the seasons you produce, in Blu-ray.
With best wishes, sincerely
Maritimus
Re: changing the cast NO, NO , NO! There is definately potential for a series PROVIDED you can gain audience "bonding" with actors/actresses, look at Sean Connery he WAS James Bond! Leonard Nemoy was "Spock" , and Shatner was Capt'n Kirk. (only on TV for three years originally.
You can add the cast of Firefly - especially Nathan Filian -- so that list.
I think it should be set in the day after tomorrow. That would underline the parallels to today's America. It also might better appeal to younger audiences. And please don't change the cast!
If you want to attract a young audience in hopes of re-educating them, you must use a modern or future setting. While steampunk may be growing in popularity today, it could easily be a short lived fad. Assuming that the goal is a series that can be watched again in 15 years or 30 years, I think steampunk is an unnecessary risk.
The idea of it becoming a TV series is so wonderful that I'm afraid I'm a little choked up.
First, I don't think anyone here would disagree that a series-length TV type of show wouldn't be better to encompass the power and breadth of the AS message. A lot had to be excised to even fit into three two-hour movies.
One problem I foresee is that today's 'mentality' and demographics make a decision or strategy of 'where and when to place the epic' very challenging.
Put it in the '50s when steam engines ran regularly and there's lots of color and nostalgia.. most of which would be lost on 'today's kids.'
Place it in the future and the entire tone of AS would have to be dramatically changed, and that brings its own hazards and challenges, too.
But your suggestion plus amhunt's, too, sparked this idea for me...
Place the Serial Version of AS in the present or near future. Then use the currently common and fairly popular Time Travel trick to Look Back in History to show How We Got Here and how AR's 'predictions' have come true in spades.
Current-day examples abound, from expanding government, ineffective programs and horrible 'leadership.'
The seeds of these weeds might be demonstrated in a story line that shows how they started, grew and took over the otherwise fertile fields we lived in and on.
I doubt that the flavor of AS could be carried faithfully along such a story line, but part of me is trying to figure out how the Messages we so desperately want to be understood by today's movers and shakers (and near-future ones, too) can be introduced to their minds before they're totally corrupted.
Like the way I've been trying to pollute my grandson's mind, steeped in his liberal family's values...
I challenge him with Socratic questions to push him to look at "Well, How/Why Does THAT happen?" and to NOT take the First Answer that pops up.
I maintain that, if an AS series/program can possibly be Effective, we need to decide what Change We're Trying To Effect! For me, it's a Return To Critical Thinking... seeing the reality of actions and consequences and Especially Unintended Consequences.
We have an opportunity, here, to deliver a possibly world-changing legacy which could literally end up benefitting billions of people.
Please, let's not fuck it up.
And, of course, I fancy myself as a wonderful editor and screenwriter, so I'd love to be part of a review team that tries to make at least the dialogue sound like words that human beings might say in real life. I still can't forgive that failure I remember from one of Eddie Willer's lines in AS1... that was my reaction to just a small part of his speech... "Humans Don't Talk That Way... Who Wrote that and Who let it stay in the script?!"
.... in my dreams.
Cheers, all...
Alan Falk
plusaf.
Making AS for TV or Netflix or whatever... What is the Goal or Objective of doing so???
Monument to AR?
Educate Millennials or their kids?
Change the World's Thinking?
Make a bundle of profit?
Promulgate free-market capitalist ideas?
Point out societal and economic failures today?
Show what the roots of those failures were?
"If you don't know where you want to go with this, you probably won't get there... "
(--- somebody smart, I guess...)
I suspect the die has been cast (no pun intended).
I also asked the questions similar to the ones in reply to your post, below... What's The Goal?
I just wish more folks here would read and reply with their opinions on that OTHER post, just above...
But maybe THAT says something, too.
So placing the story in the near future counting from 2015 will not be all that much of a stretch.
So I probably also do not agree with Plusaf's comment (thank you): "Place it in the future and the entire tone of AS would have to be dramatically changed, and that brings its own hazards and challenges, too."
Remember, it's the NEAR future, not 100 years from now. We still have no equivalent of Reardon Metal even. (Too much mediocrity, I guess...) Plus of course no one has invented John Galt's energy generator. I follow Physics, and they're not even close. (sigh)
So I don't think keeping the story in the "near future" would be a problem. But I do think that placing it in the 1950s would make it a "period piece", which for today's youth is sooooooooo boring. If you want to reach the current and future generations, you can't go back.
BTW, I am also ecstatic about ASTMS. And I'd live to ask John Williams if we could buy his soundtrack cut to the opening of "The Towering Inferno", to use as the opening of each ASTMS's episode. (I used to blast that in my car while going down the West Side Highway in NYC early in the morning while thinking of myself as a possible Hank Reardon of the Software Industry in New York.) If you've ever heard that cut, you'll know what I mean.
My greatest concern is to have a outstanding independent major player behind it, like HBO or Netflix (I'm cheering for Netflix).
Regarding the question, I agree with Eudaimonia: a period piece set in "the day after tomorrow" with a "dieselpunk" look would be awesome!
Maybe better actors and production - more like Part I. I'm sure Rand would say "You get what you pay for"!
If they can make a TV series from "The Man in the High Castle" surely a truly great book like AS can work. (Not dissing High Castle - it's just not nearly as popular as AS).
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