The upcoming film is the third installment of Ayn Rand's 1957 novel. 'Atlas' shrugs for third time

Say this for John Aglialoro: He’s not a quitter.

Aglialoro is a producer on the recent movie adaptations of Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel, “Atlas Shrugged,” which has become required reading for those in favor of smaller government. The first film opened in 2011 without an A-list cast, to disappointing reviews and a lukewarm box office, despite pinning it on tea party momentum. For the second installment, the filmmakers said they were going to broaden their marketing approach, but it didn’t fare much better, coming in 10th place in box office sales during its opening weekend.


Aglialoro says the third and final installment is gunning for a summer 2014 release, and he says this time, things will be different, namely because he won’t be under such a time crunch (part two was rushed to make it out before Election Day), so he’ll be able to create “something closer to the book.”

“I wanted to get some things in that Ayn Rand said of her characters,” Aglialoro told POLITICO. “I want to take the time so that the screenplay can say things, so that it’s a conversation.”

In previous, more rushed efforts, Aglialoro said the final product became scattered.

“There’s 300 people running around, doing one thing or another and sometimes things get in and sometimes things get left out.”

Although Aglialoro hopes for better box office, he isn’t holding out hope for better reviews.

“We’re not going to get critics coming on board,” Aglialoro said. “The academic-media complex out there doesn’t want to like the work, doesn’t want to understand it, fears the lack of government in their lives, wants the presence of government taking care of us. … The MSNBC crowd doesn’t like us.”

Although the tea party’s momentum might not be what it was when Aglialoro began the trilogy, he believes that the current political climate is bad for the country and good for marketing his movies.

“The president said in his State of the Union address something to the effect of how preserving our individual freedoms means we must have collective action,” Aglialoro said. “Well, that’s contradicting the terms of the Declaration of Independence, that individual liberty is what we’re all about. So, there’s a clear opposition between that and Ayn Rand’s principles, based around life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has expressed support for some of Rand’s writings, and Aglialoro says Ryan’s 2012 campaign alongside Mitt Romney could have used a bit more of her thinking.

“It would have served the campaign well if he would have embraced the natural way to capitalism that Ayn Rand, and I think Romney and Ryan should have quoted [her] over and over and over again during the campaign, that it’s the producers who should be applauded and appreciated and not denigrated, that ‘rich’ is not a dirty, four-letter word. It’s a good, four-letter word.”

Aglialoro is looking at a different politician to carry the mantle of Ayn Rand in Washington: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

“Since they’re starting to beat up on Cruz, there must be something good about him. Cruz is new on the scene, on the side of the free market, of limited government, of capitalist instinct in our society. So I think Cruz is somebody who could fit the bill.”