After the first installment made a world-beating $4.6 million and the second an even better $3 million, the producers of the Atlas Shrugged trilogy knew they needed to pull out all the stops to make the third installment, Atlas Shrugged: Who Is John Galt?, a stone-cold guarantee to once again make only 65 percent of the prior installment’s take at the box office. To do that, they’ve lured all-American superhero Ron Paul out of the acting retirement he probably would have been in had he pursued the box office superstardom we all know he had in him instead of pursuing politics. The Congressman, frequent presidential candidate, and passionate love of random drive-by Internet commenters will be joined in the film by Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Kris Polaha, who is probably wishing Life UneXpected had just run for seven seasons already, because he wanted an acting career, but not like this. Not like this!
Sadly, Paul will not be playing John Galt, even though his name is in the title. (That honor goes to Polaha, who is probably consoling himself that Taylor Schilling was in one of these, and everything turned out okay for her, and oh Jesus, here come the tears again.) The Hollywood Reporter article reporting Paul’s role in the film says that he and Beck will be giving their “honest responses” to John Galt’s speech in the film, but we’re pretty sure that’s beneath a thespian of Paul’s talents. Instead, we’re betting Paul will be playing John Galt’s childhood best friend and later sidekick, Lil’ Ronnie, who grew into old age while Galt was frozen, deathless, in the Arctic, returning only when America most needed him, and let’s stop this joke before we get to talking about the role of Barbarossa in Little, Big.
“Atlas Shrugged is a fantastic book, but it’s much more than a story—it’s a philosophy,” Paul said to the Reporter. “It’s influenced millions of people already and because of its greatness it’s going to continue to influence a lot of people.”
Also, Beck said, “I love Atlas Shrugged—Fountainhead I love more—but who could say no?” Don’t worry, Glenn. Your dreams of an Avengers-style team-up movie set in the Ayn Randiverse could still come true!
The third and final Atlas Shrugged movie will come out Sept. 12, in an attempt to influence the midterm elections. Needless to say, if the Democrats do poorly this November, it will be because of complicated structural issues that plague the party in midterm elections, to say nothing of the fact that the President’s party almost always struggles in midterms anyway. And, okay, yeah, because Ron Paul was in a movie.