DS, six pages, 8.5 x 11, May 30, 1980. Contract between Henry Jaffe Enterprises, Inc., and Rand in regard to the latter’s “book entitled ‘Atlas Shrugged,’” which reads, in part: “This agreement contemplates the production of one feature length motion picture…based upon the Book. The Picture shall have a length of not less than 180 minutes and not more than 200 minutes…The writer engaged by Jaffe to write a screenplay for the Picture and the writing schedule shall be subject to Rand’s approval…If at any stage of the writing process Rand and/or Jaffe does not approve the work product…then Jaffe may engage Rand to write (or rewrite, as Rand may see fit) the final screenplay for the Picture…All drafts of the screenplay submitted by any writer engaged to write the screenplay shall be submitted immediately to both Rand and Jaffe. (No third party other than Rand, Jaffe and his associates…shall be allowed to read any draft of the screenplay (or the treatment) prior to Rand’s approval of said draft.)…Once Rand has approved the final screenplay for the Picture, no changes in the final screenplay may be made in the course of production of the Picture without Rand’s approval which may be granted or withheld in her sole discretion.” The contract details numerous financial considerations pertaining to Rand’s supervision fees, payments to Rand in the event the picture is produced, out-of-pocket expenses, net profits of the picture, production and distribution fees, and provisions relating to a prior mini-series agreement for the book. Signed at the conclusion by Rand, who also adds her initial on pages two and five. In fine condition.
Rand was apprehensive about the commercial adaptation of her magnum opus Atlas Shrugged, fearing that her message and meaning would be compromised by Hollywood, which is evidenced by the various provisions controlling the text of the screenplay. As such, a film adaptation remained in ‘development hell’ for nearly 40 years until 1978, when Henry and Michael Jaffe negotiated a deal for an eight-hour Atlas Shrugged television miniseries on NBC. They obtained script approval for Rand and hired Sterling Silliphant, the screenwriter of the Sidney Poitier movie In the Heat of the Night, to adapt Atlas Shrugged. When the project was scrapped a year later with the ascension of Fred Silverman as the new NBC boss, Rand took it upon herself to write the script, but she died in 1982 with only one third finished.
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