Atlas Shrugged the movie exceeded expectations this weekend at the box office. Part one of the trilogy opened at 300 theaters this weekend.
The theme of Atlas Shrugged is the role of individual achievement in society and its goal is to demonstrate what can happen when individual achievement is undervalued, suppressed and demonized… Sort of like what we’ve experienced under the Obama-Pelosi regime. No wonder it did so well.
Atlas Shrugged opened in 300 theaters and exceeded expectations this weekend.
The Wall Street Journal reported:
Did conservatives make “Atlas Shrugged – Part 1,” a low-budget adaptation of Ayn Rand’s famous 1957 novel, a box office hit? While the film’s opening weekend sales didn’t reach blockbuster levels, earning $1.7 million from about 300 theaters, the film’s backers are enthusiastic about the results.
“We’re at the upper edge of our expectations,” said “Shrugged” producer Harmon Kaslow. “And we’re a way above what the industry expected us to do.”
Independently produced and distributed, “Atlas Shrugged” had a fairly solid per-theater average of $5,590, in line with the weekend’s other indie success, “The Conspirator,” a historical drama about the trial of Abraham Lincoln’s assassins, which earned a similar $5,550 per-venue average across 700 theaters.
According to Kaslow, the film over-performed in some markets – including Atlanta, New York, Nashville, and Portland – generating as much as $12,000 to $25,000 per theater. The film did not do as well in some locales, such as Pensacola, Fla., and Mobile, Ala.
Working with distributor Rocky Mountain Pictures, which is known for its Christian-targeted releases, Kaslow hopes next weekend to increase the film’s reach from 300 to 1,000 theaters, and from its current 80 cities to around 250, which would include smaller towns in Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Montana.
