Lionsgate has brought on 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.
The film will be produced by Howard and Karen Baldwin and Media Talent Group’s Geyer Kosinski.
Perelman will work from a draft of the script penned by Braveheart screenwriter 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.
