Casting update for Atlas Shrugged Part 2

There is an excellent summary of Part II of Atlas Shrugged posted on The Atlas Society web site.  For those unfamiliar with this organization, one of its trustees, John Aglialoro, is the film’s producer. Reading this summary will help remind readers of the incredible breadth of material that could be covered in the film. The summary is written by David Kelley, Executive Director of The Atlas Society, and starts:

Atlas Shrugged Part II is now in pre-production. This second installment of the film trilogy by Either-Or Productions (the production company formed by producer and movie-rights-owner John Aglialoro to produce Part 2) is scheduled to be in theaters next fall. Those who attend The Atlas Society’s Summer Seminar will get the first glimpse in early July.

The challenge for the film adaptation is to make a stand-alone story from what is, in the novel, the middle segment of a continuous narrative. But this segment does have a certain unity in plot and theme. In regard to the plot, here are the key events of Part II, in briefest outline:

At the end of Part I, government bureaucrats and their crony-capitalist allies have undermined the triumph of Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden in rebuilding the John Galt Line. New regulations cripple the Line and the Colorado businesses it serves—including Ellis Wyatt, who disappears after destroying his oil wells.

Part II opens six months later.

…

Part II is the slow movement in the Atlas concerto, and certainly the darkest. The protagonists find their scope of action narrowing, their hope ebbing away. Their world is falling apart and they have not yet discovered the strike or the radiant alternative of Galt’s Gulch.

Read the rest of Either-Or to get a feel for what to expect in the new film. The film is supposed to run at approx 2 hours, so it remains to be seen what will be cut to keep the time down.

It looks like IMDb has finally gotten the last of the major characters for ASP2 and while some bit parts may be added later, the roll suggests some scenes we might be seeing:

• Wedding reception for James Taggart & Cherryl Brooks with Frisco’s “Money” speech
• Charges against Ken Danagger & Hank Rearden; disappearance of Ken
• Rearden oven break-out
• Rearden’s trial
• Directive 10-289
• Dagny quits; rushes back after the tunnel disaster
• Dagny rides train to scene of disaster and Jeff Allen tells her about 20th Century Motor
• Dagny flies after Quentin Daniels and crashes in Galt’s Gulch

Dagny Taggart – Samantha Mathis
John Galt – D. B. Sweeney
Quentin Daniels – Diedrich Bader
Hank Rearden – Jason Beghe
Francisco d’Anconia – Esai Morales
Dr. Robert Stadler – Robert Picardo
Mr. Thompson – Ray Wise
Ken Danagger – Arye Gross
Lillian Rearden – Kim Rhodes
Eddie Willers – Richard T. Jones
Kip Chalmers – Rex Linn
Jeff Allen – Jeff Yagher
Wesley Mouch – Paul McCrane
James Taggart – Patrick Fabian
Cherryl Brooks – Larisa Oleynik
Clem Weatherby – Stephen Macht
Dr. Floyd Ferris – John Rubinstein
Luke Stone – Mel Fair
Gilbert Keith Worthing – Gildart Jackson
Dave Mitchum – Kevin M. Horton
Reception Guest #1 – Martin Grey
Reception Guest #2 – Dana Sparks
Judge Beckstrom – Kip Gilman
Judge Griffin – Jordana Capra
Gwen – Jennifer Cortese
Leonard Small – Bug Hall
Robert Collins – Thomas F. Wilson
Ted ‘Buzz’ Killman – Michael Gross
Giselle – Alexa Hamilton
Laura Bradford – Amy Hedrick
Operator – James Jordan
Sara Connelly – Jamie Rose
Man in Train Station – Steve Kaufmann (uncredited)
Lillian’s friend – Rebecca Dunn
Gas Attendant – Marcus Natividad (uncredited)
Pilot – Larry Poindexter
Rail Foreman – Freedom (uncredited)
Railroad Worker – Rafael Zubizarreta (uncredited)
Holly – Patricia Tallman
Orren Boyle – Michael James Spall
Stock Broker – Greg Scholl (uncredited)

UPDATE: Apr 13 – looks like they keep adding cast ~ Cherryl, Quentin, and several other support cast.

UPDATE: Apr 27 – More parts cast, including Orren Boyle, but no Wet Nurse or Ragnar with filming probably at the halfway point.

 
Here’s a report from the production set of Atlas Shrugged, from Reason:
 

During my time on set I watched the shooting of another scene that is, in a way, the lynchpin of the entire novel: the subtle attempt by Francisco D’Anconia (played by Esai Morales, most recently seen as Caprica’s Joseph Adama) to convince Rearden to abandon this world of statist control, by reminding him that Rearden never wanted to devote his life’s energies and creativity to “looters who think it’s your duty to produce, and theirs to consume. Moochers who think they owe you nothing.” (Yes, Rand fans, “looters” and “moochers,” both delivered seriously in mainstream movie dialogue.) Morales delivers the iconic line about what he would tell Atlas if he saw him bleeding and suffering, trying to bear single-handedly the burden of the world: “To shrug.”

 
Another hopeful sign is that Samantha Mathis has made it a point to read the book, so that she’ll be better able to portray Dagny.  So far, so good; now read the rest here and decide for yourself.