Despite being a gigantic critical failure and not even making enough money at the box office to shore up its modest $20 million budget, the good folk at Atlas Productions evidently refuse let a little thing like significant financial failure and audience disinterest get in the way of continuing their lackluster attempt at turning Ayn Rand's objectivist screed disguised as a novel into a big screen success. Yes, it's happening. We're getting Atlas Shrugged: Part II.
The news comes straight from the mouth of the rationally self-interested horse itself, with shooting planned for this April. Intriguingly, the film's official website, as well as the above terrible teaser video (to be fair, they have no actual footage to work with yet) cites a 2012 release date for the film, which gives on the impression that Atlas Productions is out to get this thing done just ahead of the 2012 Presidential election. I'd bet all my stock in railroad futures that this is out in mid-to-late October.
After all, I can think of no other reason why a production company would continue this venture after losing $13 million of its $20 million budget on the previous folly. Under normal circumstances, you'd expect a business man to take that kind of failure as a signal from the free market consumers that they did not enjoy their product, and simply look for something else to do. Then again, sometimes rational self-interest requires a little irrationality when the president is a socialist/communist/terrorist/baby killer/whatever else it is people are calling Obama these days.
