'Shrugged' set to expand soon

The market place has spoken … and the film version of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” will  soon be playing at a theater near most of you.

“Atlas Shrugged” opened over the weekend on a relatively small number of screens – 299 to be exact – but ended up with the third highest box office per-screen average of any release behind “Scream 4” and “Rio.”

Not bad for an indie film with no big stars, little marketing punch beyond Tea Party-approved groups and some withering reviews.

Movie-goers, on the other hand, seem to dig it. Visitors to Fandango.com mostly raved about the movie, and 85 percent of users checking in at RottenTomatoes.com approved of the screen adaptation.

The real test comes soon when the film expands to 1,000 theaters which should happen later this month. If the expansion succeeds, there’s a good chance we’ll see the second and third installments of what was planned as a trilogy based on Rand’s iconic 1957 text.