Hah Hah - Atlas Shrugged Producers have to write checks to theaters to cover losses

[RamboLiberal]

From NY Post no less.

After a middling performance during its opening weekend that was hyped in some quarters (i.e., The Hollywood Reporter), the per-screen average for this amateurish Ayn Rand adaptation (even Kyle could only muster 2.5 stars' worth of enthusiam for the movie, though he liked its message) plunged to an alarming $1,890 from $5,640 during its opening frame. Overall, the weekend's take was a scant $879,000 -- a whopping 48 percent drop despite adding 166 locations. Which certainly suggest they're running out of audience quick.

That means that at some locations, distributor Rocky Mountain Pictures will be writing checks to theaters to cover the difference between receipts and operating expenses. The only way they're likely to get the 1,000 screens the producers say they want next weekend is to rent them. And, as Kyle put it at his personal blog, "Whether the sequels get made is purely a matter of how much desire the producers have for losing money.''

Surely rubbing salt in the producers' wounds is the performance of Robert Redford's left-leaning "The Conspirator,'' which also added screens in its second weekend and managed a decent hold and a $2,696 per location average. Its current cumulative gross is $6.9 million vs. a hair over $3 million for "Atlas Shrugged.''

http://www.nypost.com/p/blogs/movies/box_office_atlas_shrugged_collapses_1oWcoz9xOxcmfdaik24uFN

[Viking12]

1. Classic: Socialist benefactors supporting Atlas Shrugged moviegoers

[The Wizard]

32. Atlas farted (NT)

[gratuitous]

2. The Invisible Hand of the Free Market

Dope-slapping the nitwits who thought this was a good idea. Sometimes things just work out, yanno?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

54. The all-too-visible hand slapping the "invisible" hand aside.

They've hit the bottom of their propaganda well.

:woohoo:

[Bozita]

3. I smell "free movie tickets" coming to RW websites soon, ... real soon!

[blondeatlast]

8. At least those can't be donated to hapless public libraries who

can't add any more to tight real estate and whose "Friends" stores can't give the damn things away.

[brooklynite]

22. Not for this bunch...

It's not showing near me yet, but I am going to buy a couple of tickets online just to support it.

I’m guessing the DVD version will be out in 4-6 months; when it arrives at your local retailer, buy a couple of copies.

I was almost going to make a 186-mile round trip to see it this weekend

[BOG PERSON]

45. free air conditioning!

:D

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

104. Bring your iPod. -nt

[arcane1]

4. I would not be AT ALL surprised if they rent more theaters

much like they buy right-wing books in bulk to inflate the numbers, then give them away free for a News Max subscription or whatever.

I definitely expect to see some bulk-buying when it comes out on DVD.

[Sonoman]

5. Oh, this is rich...

1,000 jokes in just a few lines.

KnR

Sonoman

[abelenkpe]

6. It would be financial suicide to attempt a sequel

with the box office numbers as they are. A movie needs to make it's money back in the first three weeks of release to be considered a monetary success. I doubt they could get funding.

[RamboLiberal]

7. Well some producers do make cheap ass sequels straight to DVD

or I guess On Demand.

[Frank Cannon]

17. Don't worry, they'll get funding.

Fool and his money, and all that.

[OmahaBlueDog]

43. My understanding is that the owner of "Cybex" (the gym equipment company) funded this

I'm betting they'll do Parts 2 & 3 as straight-to-DVD productions.

[Turbineguy]

9. No problem

The Koch bros have plenty of dough.

[eppur_se_muova]

10. No one could have predicted ... nt

[d_r]

11. $3 million in 2 weekends

that is an amazingly bad box office performance. It won't get to four, so this will lose around $15 million. A true bomb.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3143&p=.htm

[Bozita]

13. Nice of you to mention "bomb" ...

[formercia]

12. I wonder how many who saw this propaganda

have buyers remorse. So much for their 'Silent Majority.'

[bananas]

14. Sounds like the plot line from Mel Brooks movie "The Producers" ("Springtime For Hitler")

Maybe they should rename the movie "It's Springtme For Ayn Rand And Libertarians".

[The Wizard]

31. Here it is Bloom

The mother lode, a love letter to Hitler.
Somewhere Franz Liebkind is smiling.

[LiberalFighter]

15. Republicans are good at losing money.

[Frank Cannon]

16. They are supposedly producing TWO sequels to this hunk of crap

Maybe now would be a good time for John Travolta to dust off that "Battlefield Earth" sequel he's always wanted. Anything would be better, by comparison.

[GOTV]

27. How could there be a sequel? Did they not do the whole novel?

[Frank Cannon]

40. The book is over 1,100 pages long

Far be it from any of the Randians to delete even a word of their mistress's precious dialog.

[Liberal_in_LA]

18. sounds like a horrible movie

[spooky3]

19. if you want a laugh

Check out the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes - 6% of critics liked it, but *85%* of the self-selected audience liked it. Gee, I wonder why there's such a big difference...

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/atlas_shrugged_part_i/

[regnaD kciN]

105. "self-selected audience"...

I wonder how many of that "self-selected audience" actually saw the movie? For that matter, I wonder how many of that "self-selected audience" is/are one person?

[sofa king]

20. Atlas Shrugged--And So Did The Audience

I'll tell the truth: I don't know jack about Ayn Rand except through the lyrics of Rush:

Wonders of the world they wrooooooooooooooooAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbAho8V3tUE

Ayn Rand may suck, but Rush is awesome.

[OwnedByFerrets]

21. Wooooooooo Woooooooooooooo At last some good news

[Zorra]

23. The book was unbearably pedestrian. Why make a film out of it?

[Pacifist Patriot]

34. You stand a good chance of having answered your own question.

[liberation]

38. The other question that begs to be asked is why the need for multiple sequels?

The book's message can be condensed in a couple pages tops. Just because Rand loved to go on a hundred page excursion just to make a single bare point, does not mean the movie script has to... movies having the benefit of moving pictures and each being worth, you know, a thousand words and stuff.

[backscatter712]

24. I really want to riff Atlas Shrugged with my fellow MST3K fans!

Sounds like comedy gold!

[kenfrequed]

33. I was thinking the same thing.

Though I will wait until I see a used or second hand copy. I don't want any money to go to the people that made this peice of crap based on the mad rantings of a libertarian nutjob.

I was thinking though the other day, wouldn't it be a gas to convince the wealthiest bastards in the world that Galt's Gulch is on Mars and watch them run like made to go build their little libertarian colony there?

[nxylas]

47. Oh, please let there be a Rifftrax when it comes out on DVD

Then again, it would mean actually having to watch the damn thing. Quite a dilemma.

[bongbong]

25. Some wingnut websites

I look at a few wingnut websites & their comment threads for belly laughs. The week this fiasco came out, you should've seen the idiocy.

"I saw it! It's great! It'll be a box office smash! Get our message out!"
"This will really convince America we're right!"
"The sequels will be great, too! I'm gonna see it again!"

Comedy gold, Jerry.

[calimary]

59. No, it'll probably convince America that you teabagger freepers are:

1) stupid

2) not worth the time

3) embarrassing

4) certifiably insane

5) selfish

6) Un-Christ-like

and most obvious of all:

7) 100% Pure WRONG.

[mckara]

83. Not to Mention: "Moranic"

[calimary]

96. Couldn't have put it (or spelled it) better myself!

Spot ON!

:rofl:

[Javaman]

87. 8) horrible story tellers and bad filmmakers. nt

[calimary]

95. That too!

[LeftinOH]

26. They could take a hint from the old grindhouse circuit: Re-edit the film, inserting

a few spectacular explosions, and also plenty of girl-on-girl wrestling. Doesn't have to relate to the plotline at all.

[Capitalocracy]

28. Ouch! Welcome to the free market, jackasses!

I'm sure they're already crying for a bailout from the Koch brothers.

I mean, this is the free market we're talking about here. If they wanted to make money, they should've added tits and explosions.

[GOTV]

29. I assume this has less to do with Rand's message and more to do with the movie being terrible ...

... the book is pretty popular.

[liberation]

37. Rand's message is pretty terrible

Atlas Shrugged is a painful read. The book's popularity has always been, like most right wing drivel, kind of dramatically overblown for effect.

[sofa king]

66. So it's one of those "show off" books.

Like a certain autobiography was in Germany in the 1930s, or a certain James Joyce book that that made it all the way to Ireland and back and now rests, still unread, on the shelf of a certain poster who refers to himself in the third person.

He thinks he must like pretending he has read it, and gets away with it because nobody he knows has really read it, either. And there it sits, unreferenced, illuminating no one and nothing, like a Crown Royal bag over a Faberge egg--or is it just a flea market curiosity? The owner may never know which it really is because he cannot be bothered to actually find out.

[Lyric]

39. How many college and high school teachers require it?

The "popularity" numbers (which are usually determined by sales) might be falsely inflated because of things like required academic reading, bulk purchases by church/political organizations, and people who are just replacing copies they previously bought. I doubt if the number of people who go into a bookstore and purchase the book for personal pleasure reading is very high.

[Pale Blue Dot]

50. I am a middle school English teacher. The Rand Institute will send me a classroom set for free.

All I have to do is teach it in the classroom.

I have not.

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=support_free_books

[Lyric]

57. Well I'm a college student and English major

and I promise you, the Rand institute didn't send us any free copies. We had to buy ours at the school bookstore.

[rucognizant]

78. I picked it out randomly

at the public library when I was 15 or 16, put it down after the first chapter and never looked back!
It was NOT required reaDING IN MY HIGH SCHOOL.

[SharonAnn]

64. Not onlynot required when I was in school, but not permitted as a book report.

My teachers required good writing in the books they assigned and the ones they permitted for individual choice book reports.

[Lyric]

72. Lucky you. It was required reading for my 11th grade honors class.

I went to a rural southern public school for the second part of high school. The teacher was a Rand nut.

[Frank Cannon]

41. It might also have something to do with the fact it's a shitty book to begin with

I don't even think Stanley Kubrick could have rescued the source material.

[rpannier]

73. The movie was made on a fairly paltry budget

It appears the producers (which includes the owner of the Philadelphia Flyers) decided they could make big money by marketing to the "45 million tea party faithful" out there.

The book sucked (IMO). But the movie is an obvious attempt to get a lot for little.
I read that Snyder (Flyers owner) bought the rights to the book in 1980 and his rights to the book are close to expiring (don't know when) so I think this was his attempt to cash in before his window shut.

[Javaman]

88. The half wit had the rights since 1980 and didn't have a script?

that is epic fail.

30+ years and no script. Hell, even I write faster than that!

:rofl:

[Contrary1]

30. What a difference a few days (and reality) makes:

April 20, 2011:

"Shocking," one executive said about the healthy business the low-budget film has been doing considering its "awful" marketing plan.

Awful or not, business has been brisk enough for producers Harmon Kaslowand John Aglialoro to expand from 299 theaters to 425 this weekend and to 1,000 by the end of the month, they toldThe Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday.

The two said they fielded 500 inquiries from theater bookers Monday but didn't have enough film prints to fill orders...."

:rofl:

[evilkumquat]

35. What a huge surprise it was the NY Post's reviewer...

...that provided this celluloid shit pile one of the only two good reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

[nxylas]

49. Yep, and the other was from some obscure blogger

From a horror movie site, appropriately enough.

[closeupready]

36. BWAHAHA!! rofl That made my day.

K&R :rofl:

[dballance]

42. Well, Well. The Free Market has spoken

Too bad you Randians loose. How ironically appropriate.

[guitar man]

44. only one thing to say about that

HA HA!! :D

[The Green Manalishi]

46. I'll wait until I can torrent the ripped video :-)

Should go good as a triple feature with the orignal Dune and Battlefield Earth

[AlbertCat]

51. the orignal Dune

As I must reiterate...

The original "Dune" has amazingly beautiful costumes and sets... almost worth watching the film for (almost)... they are top notch.

"Battlefield Earth" and this Rand crap doesn't even have that!

That triple feature might better be

"Atlas Shrugged"
"Battlefield Earth"
"Howard the Duck"


or maybe

"W"

[Javaman]

89. Hey, don't knock Howard the Duck...

It had a scantilly clad Leah Thompson in it.

That was worth the price to my teen mind! LOL

[The Green Manalishi]

99. Well, the original Dune did have a Chapman Stick in it

As a Stick player I appreciated that.......

[Warren DeMontague]

55. Bite your tongue!

David Lynch's "Dune" - while not perfect; was an impressive, visually rich achievement. Part of the problem is, when it came out audiences wanted another "Star Wars", which it wasn't, clearly.

But nowhere near the level of crap that is "Battlefield Earth:"

[The Green Manalishi]

100. I think it competes nicely with "Starship Troopers"

for being the worst movie from a interesting book.

[Warren DeMontague]

102. I actually didn't think that was so bad, either

but some of that was the groundbreaking (at the time) CGI.

I read the book as a kid, I thought the movie was a fairly true adaptation of the tone of the book; which comes off like Heinlein is advocating some sort of military-ruled society, like Sparta, and it's hard to tell if he's being tongue-in-cheek or not. Same with the film.

But Lynch's Dune had a lot more going on, plus I like Lynch's tripped-out sensibilities. And Dune, at least the first one, is a great book.

[The Green Manalishi]

103. To each their own, I guess

I was so bitterly disappointed in the first 'Dune'. I guess it is what comes of creating the world in your head from a very young age. Maybe I should go revisit it; I'm not nor ever will be dogmatic about anything :-)

Starship Troopers- no ne can possibly think that didn't suck, though; the whole point of it was the suit, the technology.
I actually think that Heinlein's concept of citizenship being something earned is worth discussing. If only veterans could vote or hold office we would have an electorate and leadership with an order of magnitude more racial and cultural diversity. think about it- what percentage of former service men and women are of color and/or from the lower half of the economic spectrum? :toast:

[regnaD kciN]

106. You may have to wait a long time...

As of today, the movie has yet to show up on BitTorrent. I've never heard of a theatrically-released (in more than 100 theaters) American film not being torrented within a couple of weeks of release. Even the pirates don't want this one!

[ChairmanAgnostic]

48. you know who they will blame it on. Us.

We sneaked in liberal producers and film editors and sabotaged the final product.

[Ranting_Wacko]

52. There may be ONE way they can salvage it...

... rent it out to the Midnight Movie theaters and let the same folks who act out Rocky Horror Picture Show and The Room make fun of it.

[MrSlayer]

53. Ed Snider, the asshole owner of the Philadelphia Flyers, is a producer of this trash.

I'm glad to see that piece of shit lose money, even if it really makes no difference at the end of the day. Go Buffalo!

[louslobbs]

56. This couldn't be happening to a more deserving group of investors, may this continue into the future

and decrease their current net worth.
Lou

[florida08]

58. somewhere Mike Moore is having a satisfying laugh

[the_chinuk]

60. What happens if one Atlas shrugs and nobody goes to the theater to see it?

Well, now we know. The Objectivists have to cut a check for it.

Couldn't have happened to a nicer group of people.

[and-justice-for-all]

61. Pukes just can not seem to grasp the fact that no one wants

to see their scat films. Their base does not reads books and have no idea who the hell Ayn Rand was.

[Arugula Latte]

62. Hey, Randian Freaks -- You just got bitch slapped by the Invisible Hand!

:rofl:

[DeSwiss]

63. They'll need a government subsudy for Part II. ;-) - K&R n/t

[Puzzler]

65. Watch "Gattaca" if you really want to see a good movie in this genre....

... it even has the great Gore Vidal.

[Ohio Joe]

67. No surprise, shitty movies do not make money

or draw in crowds. They... do shitty.

[Anakin Skywalker]

68. Nobody wants to see a movie about SELFISHNESS?

[chillspike]

69. I hope Colbert covers this

No one skewers Rand and Randites like Colbert. :)

[TNLib]

70. Heh heh!

:rofl:

[tanyev]

71. Atlas really dropped the ball this time.

[craigmatic]

74. The people got a look at atlas and they shrugged.

Well they can't complain the so called free market has spoken. Nobody cares about rand.

[DissedByBush]

75. Relative budgets

"Its current cumulative gross is $6.9 million vs. a hair over $3 million for "Atlas Shrugged.'' "

Budgets:

Atlas Shrugged: $15 million
The Conspirator: $25 million

Opening screens:

Atlas Shrugged: 299
The Conspirator: 707

Atlas Shrugged is actually not doing that bad, making about as much per opening screen as The Conspirator.

Regardless of political content, I hear the low budget seriously affected the production quality, more suited to a TV movie than the big screen.

[edhopper]

76. I hate to be a nay sayer here

but I don't think this has anything to do with the source material, as much as we dislike Rand and her followers.
The book has been in publication for over 50 years and is still popular. And another Rand book, The Fountainhead, was made into a very popular movie with Gary Cooper.
I think they just made a shitty movie. Period. Maybe they thought the ideology was enough, maybe they didn't know the first thing about making a good movie.
But whatever, their movie just sucked. Just don't read into it that America has rejected this loathsome philosophy.

[provis99]

82. you know why the book sells?

Because the few fans it has go out and buy 100 copies each for themselves.

[the_chinuk]

84. Hey, don't scoff. It worked for Dianetics! n/t

[edhopper]

85. Funny

but not true.
As much as we find the ideas abhorrent and may have little regard for her writing, Rand remains popular. And the fate of this movie has little to do with her appeal.
I have no problem with the schadenfreude over the fools who thought they could make a movie based on this novel through the forse of the ideas. I just don't think the box office is a rejection of the book or Rand. it's just a bad movie.

[Javaman]

90. Did you ever read the book? nt

[edhopper]

93. I couldn't get through it

And I am not defending the book. Only saying the failure of the movie has more to do with it being a crappy movie than a judgment on the source material.

[Javaman]

94. yes, the movie is crappy...

but the book was sophomoric and frankly, down right trite. This is aside from it being mind numbingly boring.

I suffered through it twice, sad to say. Once as a teen in high school. (recommended by a half wit teacher whom I didn't realize was a half wit until later that year) and sadly, yet again as a young 20 something trying to figure out what to do with my life. That book showed me what not to do.

Both times I read it, I thought it insufferably bad.

Trying to translate crap to the screen is a challenge to any filmmaker who sees a "vision" in a literary work of any sort, but frankly, aside from the self righteous nature of the book, I honestly don't see how any person in their right mind would think, "hey, this would make a riveting movie!".

So much of it would be need to "sexed up" in order for it to be, not only watchable but to be understood via rand's very narrow sense of reality.

The failure of the movie wasn't the only fact that it was poorly made, the movie suffered from something more basic than that, the filmmaker aimed his movie at a target audience thinking that this same target audience would eat up pedantic crap all because it was wrapped up in a right wing theology.

Bottom line: even right wing nut jobs want to see a movie with a good story. This project was a failure from the start since the original material was colossally obtuse and boring.

Just because one gets the calling of "if you built it they will come" doesn't mean that 1) they will come and 2) you have to keep them wanting more.

Both of which, the book and now the movie, failed miserably at.

[edhopper]

97. You are not wrong about the book.

But the same could be said of Twilight.

[Javaman]

98. LOL Good one! LOL

Cheers!

[regnaD kciN]

107. Not to mention the anachronism...

Trying to translate crap to the screen is a challenge to any filmmaker who sees a "vision" in a literary work of any sort, but frankly, aside from the self righteous nature of the book, I honestly don't see how any person in their right mind would think, "hey, this would make a riveting movie!".

So much of it would be need to "sexed up" in order for it to be, not only watchable but to be understood via rand's very narrow sense of reality.

...that the story is based around the all-important "titans" of the U.S. steel and railroad industries. Excuse me...the what and the what? :rofl:

The screenwriters apparently tried to get around that by positing a near future where OPEC has made oil so expensive that we have to resort to railroads again...and, apparently, making shipping steel overseas from Asia prohibitive enough that the "titans" have just rebuilt the entire domestic steel industry from the ground up in five years or less. In the words of Noah, "riiiiiiiiiiiight..." :eyes:

The problem (well, one of many) with the novel is that it has a decidedly retro vibe. For it to be even remotely believable, it would have to be set in the mid-twentieth century, sometime between the 1930s and 1950s. But nothing will be less convincing than a "prophetic novel of the future" set more than a half-century in the past.

[regnaD kciN]

108. Not quite...

And another Rand book, The Fountainhead, was made into a very popular movie with Gary Cooper.

The Fountainhead was far from a "very popular" movie, doing only mediocre box-office. It only drew some attention later on, in repertory houses in the 1970s and 1980s, because of the campiness of the production. (The New York Times review upon its initial release concluded "'The Fountainhead' is a picture which you don't have to see to disbelieve.")

[BobTheSubgenius]

77. An uninspired, BORING adaptation of a terrible novel,

with an awful message, written by a lunatic HACK of a writer who admired an absolutely monstrous torturer and murderer.

What's not to like?

[Demeter]

79. Excellent!

Let the punishment fit the crime!

[Liberal In Texas]

80. Part 2: Direct to DVD.

If it even gets made.

[Javaman]

91. Part 3: out of a trunk at the local flea market.

:rofl:

[Zambero]

81. Movie theatre patrons also shrugged

I mean, who needs this flick anyway?

[deacon]

86. Atlas Winced. n/t

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

92. When Will They Be Returning...

the two hours of wasted life people lost while watching this crap?

[upi402]

101. Atlas ain't the only one shrugging

:shrug: Whatevah... pffft