8 Films That Were Made Solely To Hold Onto Rights

Producers had been trying to make a movie out of Ayn Rand’s Objectivist book Atlas Shrugged for nearly four decades, but any deal always fell apart for one reason or another. A producer who owned the rights spent the better part of eighteen years trying to get it made, with actors like Julia Roberts and Angelina Jolie circling it.

After years of getting nowhere and realising the rights were expiring, he threw quality to the wind. He hired a cast of unknown TV actors and hired Paul Johansson – aka the evil uncle from One Tree Hill – to direct it. The film was laughed off the screen when it was finally released in 2011 and met savage reviews criticising the cheap look, the dreadful script and the movie’s moral message.

Despite being a box office bomb the producer still pressed ahead with parts two and three, which had a revolving door of cast and crew. The budget for part three was so low it had to be partially funded with Kickstarter, which should indicate the popularity of the “franchise.”