Angela would make an excellent Dagney Tabert. I wonder if they will replace the dated "railroad" and "Reardon steel" model for something more up-to-date. It it is the near future, she could represent a major airline and he could represent Boeing and a hypersonic transport.
I dunno. It would be a lot of rewriting. Maybe it would have to be like one of Angelas other movies, Sky Captain and the world of tomorrow. Sort of a past glimps of a different future.
Oh God, I hope not.
The book was written from 1947 to 1957. The "present" conjured up by the book represents Rand's vision of an America where the rightward turn in the 1946 elections never happened. Imagine someone like Congressman Vito Marcantonio of New York (a communist agent) or former vice president Henry Wallace as the Democratic president who succeeded FDR, and you'll get the picture Rand wanted to create.
Her version of the Fifties showed an America where all technological progress had stopped because of the heavy hand of government. It's this barren, depressed and repellent Fifties America that a good production designer has to create. My model would be "Streets of Fire".
I'm thinking "Rearden Polymers" or "Rearden Carbon Fibers" or "Rearden Nanotubes." Not as macho sounding but it will do.