Yesterday, as production got underway this week, details on the independently financed “Atlas Shrugged” were revealed. The project, which once had the likes of Angelina Jolie, Charlize Theron and Maggie Gyllenhaal interested and/or offered roles had settled mostly on a B-rate cast, with the director’s chair occupied by “One Tree Hill” actor Paul Johansson. But for those of you had been following the story, you might have realized that when the talk of the film first surfaced in May, the director was set to be actor and one-time director Stephen Polk. But clearly, he’s been replaced and he’s not happy about it.
Speaking with Deadline, Polk vented his frustration about being booted from the film saying “I had some real names seriously interested, but it had to be a real feature film, and I feel like I had the rug pulled out from under me,” Polk said. “When we talked about cast, even B-list cast, they were like, ‘we don’t need names.’ It was great material, people were interested, but there were red flags. It’s devastating to me. They replaced me with a TV actor, this has TV written all over it. They’ve fired other people. I was trying to embrace the spirit of Atlas Shrugged, and it will be interesting to see if they can still pull it off.” While Polk doesn’t mention the names he had interested, he could use a dose of self-awareness. His only directing credit is the little seen drama “Baggage,” and frankly skimming over his film appearances as an actor, he’s just about as big a name as anybody currently attached the film and his statement sounds a lot like hurt feelings combined with a bit of a self-inflated ego. Polk also seems to forget that for all his disdain for TV, the project was conceived as a mini-series for Epix back in 2009 and we presume to keep things budget friendly, plans for a feature were scaled back. The budget for Part One is a very lean $5 million.
Polk has hired an attorney and is preparing for litigation, claiming that problems began to surface when his take on the material caused the budget to climb. Frankly, it’s a pretty standard practice for studios and producers to dump/hire directors that will bring in a film on the budget they need. It will be interesting to see how this one plays out. The project will be a four-part adaptation but it’s unclear when subsequent parts will shoot. And it should also be noted, the only reason the project was fast-tracked before cameras, is that producer John Aglialoro would have lost the rights if cameras hadn’t started rolling by last Saturday. So don’t be surprised if the other three parts never materialize and Aglialoro starts all over trying to get a proper feature made. It would be a situation similar to that facing Constatin Film who made the cheapie 1994 “The Fantastic Four” in order to hang out to the comic book rights. And we all know how that turned out.
