My understanding is that Jolie will play Dagney Taggart and Brad Pitt (inevitably) will play John Galt. It’s been cooking for a while, but there apparently have been problems getting the project moving forward. That is to be expected of a film whose climax is a 60-page monologue on Rand’s pseudo-Aristotelean doctrine, e.g.:
There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe; existence or non-existence–and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms. The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not: it depends on a specific course of action. Matter is indestructible, it changes its forms, but it cannot cease to exist. It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that existence. It is only the concept of “Life’ that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.
Imagine an hour or so of that, surrounded by the smell of stale popcorn bobbing in tropical oils and Angelina Jolie fans braying into their cell phones. Hell. On. Earth. Who is John Galt? He’s Tyler Durden.