Hot off the Toronto International Film Festival world premiere of his latest film, “The Last Photograph,” Zack Snyder has revealed that there is interest from “some very powerful, very wealthy people” in his long-gestating adaptation of Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead.”
Snyder has been talking for around 10 years about adapting Rand’s divisive 1943 novel, which was previously adapted by King Vidor into a 1949 film starring Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal. In 2024, Snyder revealed on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast that he had unsuccessfully pitched a limited series adaptation of the book to Netflix.
Despite that, the filmmaker said on Thursday’s episode of the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast that his Rand adaptation is “absolutely on the list” of projects he wants to tackle next.
“I really feel like it’s a good time for ‘Fountainhead,’” Snyder said. “I wish I had ‘Fountainhead’ ready to release on the heels of [‘The Last Photograph’]. I’ve written it as a 12-part [limited series]. I’ve written 10 of the 12 episodes.”
“I have some ideas on how to make it. Strangely there’s a lot of very powerful, very wealthy people that like ‘Fountainhead.’ So, you know, there’s some places. There’s some interest,” Snyder added. “Weirdly, I took it around and it was interesting. I sold it to two companies and then, for whatever reason, they came back to me like a week later and were like, ‘Oh, we can’t do it.’”
“I think they just [took] it up the flag pole and everyone was like, ‘What? You’re insane! We can’t make ‘Fountainhead.’ So, I’m excited about that,” Snyder continued, adding, “That’s a reason to make it right there.”
Rand’s novel tells the story of Howard Roark, a fictional, ambitious young architect who refuses to bend his vision to the standards and conventions of an industry that does not want to accept his innovations. The book is a foundational text in Rand’s well-publicized belief in the superiority of individualism over collectivism. Its protagonist is a man who would rather burn his own projects to the ground than let others influence their designs.
“I’m an unapologetic fan of ‘Fountainhead.’ I don’t care,” Snyder told “Happy Sad Confused” host Josh Horowitz. “There’s not a lot of books for architects out there, you know? All the kids who love architecture that read ‘Fountainhead’ are like, ‘This is my thing,’ and then they’re told by their teacher at their liberal arts college that they’re not allowed to like ‘Fountainhead.’ So then they have to put it aside, but then they secretly read it.”
Snyder did not name the specific “very powerful, very wealthy people” he may be able to convince to back his adaptation. He did, however, tell Horowitz that he got a hold of Rand’s original “310-page script” for Vidor’s 1949 film and has been using it to help him “edit” his own adaptation of her novel.
