The Most Controversial Novel Ever Is Becoming A TV Series
Atlas Shrugged has now been purchased and will be turned into a series on Dailywire+.
The Daily Wire has secured the rights to Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel, Atlas Shrugged. The conservative media company plans to develop a series adaptation for distribution on its streaming platform Dailywire+. CEO Jeremy Boreing announced the deal during a live-streamed town hall address, Deadline reports. He will also serve as a producer on the project alongside Ben Shapiro and Caleb Robinson.
The Atlas Shrugged deal was negotiated on behalf of The Daily Wire by Dallas Sonnier and Joshua Herr. Roger Arar and Kaslow on behalf of Atlas Distribution Company, Tim Knowlton of Curtis Brown Ltd. on behalf of the Peikoff Family Partnership, and the Estate of Ayn Rand were also involved. The news comes as the media company looks to create a lineup of new film and television content. Its recent projects include Terror on the Prairie starring Gina Carano and the 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 [Atlas Shrugged] on the creative power of economic freedom and the terrible consequences of its loss to the screen as a premium series,” Boreing said via Deadline. He added that the company never thought they would manage to acquire the rights to such a culturally ubiquitous work. Now the Daily Wire is going to have the tall task of turning one of the most controversial novels into a full series, which is likely to have its own challenges.
“I am thrilled to announce that DailyWire+ has acquired the exclusive rights to one of the most influential books of the 20th Century,” he added. The mystery, science fiction, romance novel has long been heralded as a canonical work in conservative literature. The Daily Wire says it plans to approach series creators and showrunners for Atlas Shrugged in the coming months. For now, Dallas Sonnier and Amanda Presmyk will produce for Bonfire Legend, along with Atlas Distribution Company.
Atlas Shrugged is the fourth and final novel published by Ayn Rand during her lifetime. She considered it to be her magnum opus in the realm of fiction writing as the story contains her most extensive statement of objectivism. She described the theme of the novel as “the role of man’s mind in existence.” The novel also explores several philosophical themes from which Rand would develop objectivism. This includes reason, property rights, individualism, and capitalism.
Atlas Shrugged depicts a dystopian United States in which private businesses suffer under increasingly burdensome laws and regulations. Along with steel magnate Hank Rearden, railroad executive Dagny Taggart fight against “looters” who want to exploit their productivity. Together, they discover that a mysterious individual named John Galt is persuading other business leaders to abandon their companies and disappear as a move against the looters.
The story concludes with the leaders planning to build a new capitalist society based on Galt’s philosophy. We would imagine that this story is going to be pulled into our current sociopolitical landscape in some way, at least that is what the Daily Wire can do now that they have purchased the rights to this novel.
Atlas Shrugged received largely negative reviews at first. But in the decades that followed, the novel grew in popularity and sales. The book has also been cited as an influence on some libertarian and conservative thinkers and politicians. After several unsuccessful attempts to adapt it for the screen, a film trilogy was released in 2011, starring Taylor Schilling and Samantha Mathis. Two theatrical adaptations have also been staged.
