Wonder of wonders, that's no longer a hypothetical question. They did make a movie of Atlas Shrugged - it opened on April 15. And even more wonderfully, no one is showing up.
The first week audience wasn't strong, but it was tax weekend and everyone was at Tea Party rallies, so the second week (when it expanded to 465 theaters from 299 opening week) would tell the tale. Surely the conservatives who clamor for movies that advance their point of view would turn out in droves. Surely they'd ignore the scathing reviews (Ebert:"incoherent and murky"; LA Times: "crushingly ordinary"); those liberal movie reviewers can't be trusted!
But it was not to be. It only took in $879,000 this past weekend (about a week's pay for Jamie Dimon), a measly $1,890 per screen. Maybe it was just a bad weekend for movies? Not so much: Rio took in $26 million, and Tyler Perry's new one almost as much.
It's now up to a total gross of $3 million - only $17 million to go until it recovers what it cost to make. That free market can be a pesky thing, can't it?