For those Tea Partiers on the edge of their seats, waiting to find out what happens in the next two installments of the Atlas Shrugged movie series — they may not want to hold their breath.
John Aglialoro, the producer, distributor, and financier of the first Atlas Shrugged movie, says he’s reconsidering his plans, thanks to scathing reviews from movie critics (and TPM). “Critics, you won,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “I’m having deep second thoughts on why I should do Part 2.”
Atlas Shrugged: Part One opened April 15 on 299 screens. The Times reports:
“Atlas Shrugged” was the top-grossing limited release in its opening weekend, generating $1.7 million on 299 screens and earning a respectable $5,640 per screen. But the box office dropped off 47% in the film’s second week in release even as “Atlas Shrugged” expanded to 425 screens.
The Tea Party group Freedomworks helped push to get it distributed to those 299 screens, and Aglialoro was hoping to expand to 1000 if the box office returns were strong enough. So far the movie’s made $3.1 million — which is not very strong at all.
“Why should I put up all of that money if the critics are coming in like lemmings?” Aglialoro, said. “I’ll make my money back and I’ll make a profit, but do I wanna go and do two? Maybe I just wanna see my grandkids and go on strike.”
Rotten Tomatoes has the movie at 6% (down from an already rotten 9% last week), out of 33 reviews. Metacritic gives it a 28 Meta Score out of 100, based on 18 critics.
Read TPM’s own review of the movie here.
