5 Feet of Fury

PJ O’Rourke hates the new ‘Atlas Shrugged’ movie

Seriously, people. It’s about a railroad. In the future. Think about it mentally.

See?

O’Rourke goes on to make a point I’ve made here previously, which is that Shrugged’s producers really should’ve considered either:

a) setting the film in some sort of ‘alternate’ future, in which trains were not considered the most vital means of transportation (requiring some alteration of Rand’s basic storyline), or;

b) simply setting the film in an ‘alternate’ version of 1957, when the novel was actually published.

If, as the Hollywood Reporter article implies, Team Shrugged is counting on the Tea Party crowd to bail them out at the box office, that seems unlikely. Ray Griggs’ I Want Your Money, for example, had over 3 million views on its You Tube trailer and a ton of exposure in the conservative media, but when the film opened in over 500 theaters it only made a little over $400,000.

Shrugged might need to make over 25x that in order to start making a profit.