You may remember the story from last summer that, fed up with waiting for studios to get their act together, producer John Agliorolo decided to go ahead and start his Atlas Shrugged adaptation on his own. It seems to be working so far: the first Atlas Shrugged trailer has just gone online, at the project's official website.
Ayn Rand's colossal 1957 novel, about the conflict between collectivism and individualism, challenged thousands of years of philosophy and was disowned on its initial publication by the political left, right and centre.
It's a tough text to try to cram into movie length (hence the projected trilogy, which has shrunk from four instalments since last year), so a two-minute trailer has an even harder job. Which explains why the promo clip comes off looking like a bit like an ad for a film based on Railway Tycoon, since it's forced to try and focus on the plot (Dagny Taggart tries to keep her train company operating) because the themes are too big.
Exercise equipment mogul Agliorolo's self-financing hasn't stretched to a glitzy cast, giving this a bit of a feel of a TV mini-series (the spin is that the material is so strong it doesn't need stars to sell it, which is fair enough). Taylor Schilling (Mercy) is Dagny, with Grant Bowler (Ugly Betty, The Killer Elite) as metal magnate Henry Reardon and Paul Johansson (One Tree Hill), who's also directing, as John Galt. "Who is John Galt?" asks the trailer, tilting for some "What is The Matrix?" action. Well he's the enigmatic manipulator behind the world-threatening strike that underpins the story. That's who he is.
Elsewhere in the cast you'll spot Coen Brothers alumni Michael Lerner and John Polito, Matthew Marsden (Rambo, Anacondas, Coronation Street) and Armin Shimmerman from Buffy and DS9.
High on talk and low on action, this is going to be a hard sell for Agliorolo, so you have to admire his tenacity in seeing it through. The book's background of a devastated economy caused by government intervention, leading to ever-more government intervention, will no doubt be as popular as ever with right-wingers. The US release date is April 15.