Nicholas E. LauerZack Snyder Puts "The Fountainhead" Adaptation on Hold
During a new interview on the Life is Short with Justin Long podcast (via UPROXX), Zack Snyder has revealed that he is putting his long-in-development adaptation of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead on hold. His reasons? The political motivations clearly presented in the novel, which Snyder finds people won't be able to deal with, saying, “It’s a book that is so politically charged that we need a more liberal government to do The Fountainhead so that everyone won’t freak out or something."
The story focuses on Howard Roark, an intransigent young architect, who battles against conventional standards and refuses to compromise with an architectural establishment unwilling to accept innovation. Like Rand's other novels, her philosophy of Objectivism bleeds into the narrative. Objectivism, in summary, believes individualism is superior to collectivism with the idea that the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness and that the only social system consistent with this morality is one that displays full respect for individual rights embodied in laissez-faire capitalism. It's an ideology highly popular with libertarians and conservative readers.
While Snyder acknowledges the way most view the politics of the novel, he still wants to do the adaptation at some point, with the story not being about politics for him personally:
“To me, it’s like, if you’re a filmmaker, you sort of understand if you’re looking at it from that lens, building a building (the subject of The Fountainhead) and making a movie are very similar. You’re making little compromises constantly. Maybe one story less, and it’ll be very good. Does it really need all those fancy window frames? Maybe just make the windows. You wanted a mansion, and you end up with something that sort of looks like a house. For me, that’s always what The Fountainhead was about. For a lot of people, it’s a big political thing, but for me, it’s not so much about that.”
So, while audiences may get to see this ambitious project someday, for now Snyder wants to avoid dealing with the politically charged nature of the current political atmosphere. Who can blame him? Stay tuned!