11 Reasons Why Atlas Shrugged Failed At The Box Office

Depending on which way you phrased your Google search, Atlas Shrugged was either a triumphant success despite the Hollywood conspiracy, or looking at the dollar and cents side of things (you know, that little thing called reality), it has been a failure so far. Because if Scott Pilgrim making 3/4 of its money back is a failure, only making about 1/4 of the budget back is most certainly one too.

So here are 11 reasons why Atlas Shrugged failed at the box office:

1. The source material is what the word turgid was invented to describe.

2. The threat that it was a trilogy and the psychic scarring the general public had from the last pseudo-philosophical trilogy of movies featuring human parasitism. You know, the Matrix movies.

3. To quote Cloris Leachman during the Roast of Bob Saget: "Somebody punch me in the face so I can see some stars."

4. The only place I hear about this movie are political shows either lauding it or ripping on it.

5. 13% on Rotten Tomatoes.

6. It was apparently badly written and directed. That's a biggie.

7. The writer/producer honestly believes that the critics conspired to destroy the movie based on its ideas rather than reasons #3 and #6.

8. Ayn Rand isn't a great selling point for the majority of the population, considering in her mixed bag of beliefs, she holds positions which are anathema to both sides of the political divide (anti-religion, pro-abortion, anti-social safety net, anti-affirmative action etc). If you really put that out there, that would alienate a lot of people.

9. They didn't even market it to people who would be outside of the core libertarian/Tea Party base, so they were basically trying to market a 20 million dollar movie to a really small audience. The Passion of the Christ cost about 30 million a few years ago, and they marketed that thing to everyone, even though it most of the money it made was likely from a very small group of people.

10. As has been joked in the past, market forces determined that this film was found wanting in so many ways.

And finally:

11. The movie wasn't advertised with the tagline "See the source material for Bioshock!"