Listen, I know that doesn't really make any sense but it's Friday and my brain aches and what the hell am I supposed to do with this news just in over the Movieline transom anyway:
Atlas Productions, LLC announced today that Atlas Shrugged Part 2, the second installment of the Atlas Shrugged movie trilogy, has been officially greenlit with principal photography to begin this coming April in Los Angeles, Colorado, and New York.
Based on Ayn Rand’s (Feb. 2 1905 - Mar. 6 1982) 1957 novel, ATLAS SHRUGGED is set in the near future when a dystopian United States finds its leading innovators, from industrialists to artists, mysteriously disappearing at an alarming rate resulting in the “stopping the motor of the world." [...]
Rand’s 1,100 page novel is being produced by Atlas Productions as a trilogy which follows the three part structure of the bestselling book. Part 1 was released theatrically on April 15, 2011. Part 2 is set to be in theaters October 2012 amidst what is sure to be a fever pitched presidential election season.
“It’s no coincidence that we chose Ayn Rand’s Birthday as the occasion to make this announcement. We have high aspirations for Part 2. We’ve looked carefully at Part 1 and taken time to analyze and reexamine everything from the script to the casting. John and I are committed to making a great Part 2 and excited about what lies ahead,” according to Producer Harmon Kaslow.
For the record, the first installment of Atlas Shrugged grossed $4.6 million theatrically on a reported (read: clearly overinflated) $20 million budget, prompting even such knob-polishing deans of blurb whoredom as Peter Travers to gripe: "Ayn Rand's monumental 1,168-page, 1957 novel gets the low-budget, no-talent treatment and sits there flapping on screen like a bludgeoned seal."
Anyway, here's a teaser. Mark your calendars!
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