So who will play Obama?

Ayn Rand's Objectivist treatise, Atlas Shrugged, may finally make it to the big screen in 2011.

For those not familiar with the story, Atlas Shrugged is a novel about visionary entrepreneurs struggling against a confiscatory government taking over industries and instituting socialism during a global economic collapse. Sound ... familiar? It would be easy to call it a diatribe against the current administration were it not written fifty years ago.

The story has everything to entice contemporary audiences: mystery, conspiracy, gadgetry, scandal, political intrigue, disappearances, love triangles, and a chic retro-1950s setting. Those on the rabid left will enjoy the anti-religious tone and military buffoonery in Rand's narrative. Those wary of "stimulus," "bailouts," and other government interference in the market will find profound resonance with the current crisis in American capitalism. Atlas is a pro-free-market camp meeting.

The movie project has been in development for so many years, producers once hoped to cast Faye Dunaway and Clint Eastwood in the lead roles. Now, they're hoping for Angelina Jolie or Anne Hathaway for story's heroine.

It's no coincidence that interest in the book and the movie are experiencing surges. Although I have my own reservations about the story, I look forward to the movie and the inevitable firestorm it will generate. The timing could hardly be better.