Jolie to Star in Ayn Rand
Lionsgate studio has hired filmmaker Vadim Perelman to rewrite “Atlas Shrugged” and direct Angelina Jolie in the starring role. While Lionsgate needs to get a final script before formally committing to a start date with Perelman at the helm, the move puts the company in a strong position for an early 2008 production start, just a shade over 50 years after Ayn Rand’s famed novel was first published in 1957.
Perelman will work from a draft of the script penned by “Braveheart” scribe Randall Wallace, who managed to boil down the Rand manifesto of 1,100-plus pages into a 127-page script. The drama revolves around what happens when great industrialists and thinkers go on strike and the world grinds to a halt.
“Atlas Shrugged” has long been a project that Jolie has wanted to star in.
