The Daily Wire Lines Up Series Adaptation Of Ayn Rand’s Dystopian Novel ‘Atlas Shrugged’
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EXCLUSIVE: Conservative media firm The Daily Wire has optioned exclusive film and TV series rights to develop and produce an adaptation of Ayn Rand’s dystopian 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged, the author’s most heralded work.
The company is planning to produce a series adaptation for distribution on its streaming platform, Dailywire+. Daily Wire co-CEO Jeremy Boreing just announced the deal in a livestreamed town hall address.
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Atlas Shrugged, which has sold more than 7 million copies worldwide, depicts a dystopian United States in which private businesses suffer under increasingly burdensome laws and regulations. Railroad executive Dagny Taggart and her lover, steel magnate Hank Rearden, struggle against “looters” who want to exploit their productivity. Dagny and Hank discover that a mysterious figure called John Galt is persuading other business leaders to abandon their companies and disappear as a strike of productive individuals against the looters. The novel ends with the strikers planning to build a new capitalist society based on Galt’s philosophy.
The sci-fi, mystery and romance novel has long been held up as a canonical work in conservative literature. Daily Wire says it plans to approach series creators and showrunners in the next month.
The novel has been the subject of multiple attempted film and TV versions over the decades. The Godfather and Million Dollar Baby producer Albert S. Ruddy tried to get away an adaptation for years. Businessman and producer John Aglialoro — a producer on this version — first optioned the film rights in 1992. A film trilogy based on the book finally was released in 2011, starring Taylor Schilling and Samantha Mathis.
Jeremy Boreing, Ben Shapiro and Caleb Robinson are producing for DailyWire+. Dallas Sonnier and Amanda Presmyk are producing for Bonfire Legend. Aglialoro and Harmon Kaslow are producing for Atlas Distribution Company. Scott DeSapio, Joan Carter and Danielle Cox are executive producers.
The deal was negotiated by Dallas Sonnier and general counsel Joshua Herr on behalf of DailyWire+, Roger Arar and Kaslow on behalf of Atlas Distribution Company, and Tim Knowlton of Curtis Brown Ltd. on behalf of the Peikoff Family Partnership and the Estate of Ayn Rand.
Right-wing news and media company The Daily Wire has been forging a lineup of film and TV content. Recent movies include Gina Carano western Terror on the Prairie and D.J. Caruso thriller Shut In.
“When we decided in 2020 to launch into entertainment, my vision at that time was to bring Ayn Rand’s seminal work on the creative power of economic freedom and the terrible consequences of its loss to the screen as a premium series,” said Boreing during the address today.
He continued: “The obvious problem, we thought, is that we would never be able to get the rights to such a culturally ubiquitous work. I was wrong. Today, I am thrilled to announce that DailyWire+ has acquired the exclusive rights to one of the most influential books of the 20th Century.”
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