Vadim Perelman to direct Atlas Shrugged

House Of Sand And Fog helmer Vadim Perelman has been hunted down and attached to the bubbling Ayn Rand adaptation Atlas Shrugged.

The film already has Angelina Jolie’s interest, despite the 1,100-page book being all but written off as unfilmable. But though they have now locked in a director, Lionsgate’s execs aren’t quite ready to make the leap into announcing a start date – they still need a final script.

That’ll take a little while as writer Randall Wallace – who has somehow boiled the plot of the novel (the world’s big thinkers and industrialists go on strike leading to the globe’s culture grinding to a halt) down to a more manageable 127 pages. He’ll now work with Perelman – who apparently has his own take on the material - to bash out a new draft before the greenlight can flash.

If Jolie finishes Clint Eastwood’s The Changeling in time, Atlas could be chugging into production by early 2008…

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