I Will Sacrifice Nothing

Did The Adaptation Get It Right?

March 7, 2026

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I remember. I was 19 years old. I was in Palm Springs, in a gaudy house, living like a modern Benjamin Braddock.

I spent my days beside the pool, reading a 753-page book called The Fountainhead. I didn't know anything about it before I started, other than that it was big, meaning it must be important. I didn't know that the philosophy of this book would heavily influence my 20s, and leave me feeling hollow in my inability to match its ideals.

But that disillusionment came later. Still a teen in the sun-drenched desert, The Fountainhead hit me at exactly the right time. My life was still something to look forward to, and this novel gave me a belief in my potential — the type of belief that can only exist when there is no experience to prove or deny it.

My first thought after finishing it was, "This would make a great adaptation." I was 19; what did I know?

In a classic combination of ignorance and ambition, I got to work.

The first step in creating an adaptation is to find out if an adaptation already exists. As it turns out, an adaptation of The Fountainhead does exist. It's from 1949, starring Gary Cooper with King Vidor directing. Ayn Rand, the novel's author, wrote the script herself.

Being the wannabe screenwriter that I was (am), I did my due diligence and watched the film. It left me underwhelmed.

Before I even pressed play, there was a glaring detractor against it. That is, the fact that it's a movie.

Hear me out.

The book is over 700 pages, but the movie is under two hours. You can see the discrepancy. I mean, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a 27-page story, but the movie is nearly three hours long. Even with Rand penning the script, how were they going to fit all that story into a relatively short runtime?

The answer? They didn't.

The movie zips through the first couple hundred pages in about six minutes via montage. Huge concessions are made, and a lot of my favourite scenes got cut. Roark's construction of the Temple of the Human Spirit is gone, as is the controversial statue of a naked Dominique Francon in full exaltation, "Seeking God—and finding itself."

I was shocked that an author so against sacrifice would end up sacrificing so much of her own book for the sake of adaptation.

The intense cutting of context gives the movie a surprisingly quick pace, but it also disservices the characters, their stories and their motives. The movie talks about individualism versus collectivism, the importance of ego, and the power of a single person who sets their mind to an objective, but it doesn't prove these theories like the book does. These ideas don't have time to develop in the movie like they do in the book.

The movie also lacks the sense that it is a movie, and not something else. A movie is, first and foremost, a visual medium. As such, there are visual cues that only a movie can utilize. With Rand's script and her demand that not a word of her dialogue be changed, The Fountainhead plays more like a radio drama than a movie. You could watch this movie with your eyes closed and you'd get the gist. Everything is stated in exposition and very little is symbolically shown. There's no doubt that the dialogue of The Fountainhead is important. It comes from a largely philosophical work of fiction, akin to Albert Camus's The Stranger. However, I feel that more could have been done to visually express the messaging. The film still has some great visuals, thanks to Vidor's knack for German expressionism, but rarely do we understand what characters are getting at other than through dialogue.

Take a look at the movie's opening compared with the novel's. The movie starts in the university dean's office with Roark getting expelled. The dean tells us that Roark's ideas are radical, but the scene doesn't visually explain anything about Roark. The book, on the other hand, has a stellar opening. "Howard Roark laughed." That's the opening sentence. He is naked, standing on top of a huge granite cliff, exalted in the natural world and observing the material that is all around him. Without hesitation, he jumps off the cliff and dives into the water. This opening shows Howard's comfort in the natural world. His body of "long straight lines" is an extension of nature. The connection between the mathematics of architecture and the natural lines of Earth is purposefully interplayed.

The movie was panned on release, and now it is remembered for all the wrong reasons. It is called camp. It's simultaneously overacted and underacted. Its dialogue is the furthest thing from natural. The pacing, as mentioned, is bizarre. And it's so bloody melodramatic. Although I think there is some merit to the movie, I don't think it's a proper representation of the novel I loved.

I never did make that adaptation I dreamed of, but still today I think about it. I still have ideas. If I had the chance to adapt The Fountainhead, here's what I would do.

First, I would sacrifice nothing.

That means I'd have to do something that is antithetical to my reputation as a "movie guy." I wouldn't adapt it into a movie. The parameters of a movie do The Fountainhead an injustice. It's not a story that you need to watch in a big, collective room. It's about individualism, and so your consumption of it should be as an individual. I see The Fountainhead working best as a miniseries on Netflix or Prime. This would give the story's ideas more time to make an impression on the audience. Plus, it would let me show all my favourite scenes from the book that the 1949 movie cut out.

I can't decide if it is better to keep the story in its 1920s/1930s setting, or if my miniseries version should be updated to modern times. I think it could be modified to take place in the 2020s quite easily, without losing much of its essence. Architecture, after all, is still architecture. And the media is still the media. Keeping it in the first half of the 20th century would be more true to the novel, and I'm a sucker for a period piece. Plus, modern architecture being revolutionary doesn't really fit in today's time. It is more understandable that people in the 30s would find Roark's designs challenging and offensive. Modernizing the story might lose the metaphor attached to modernist architecture. So, maybe it's best to keep it in its original era.

As to who will play the characters, that's up to personal preference. Gary Cooper was a quality pick for Howard Roark, even if he wasn't happy with his performance. Roark is Rand's ideal man. As such, his look should be nearly impossible to obtain. That's why someone like Glen Powell comes to mind, if he can manage a more serious and dramatic role. As for Dominique Francon, her cold, suppressed sexuality is essential, but it must be accompanied by her unshakeable will. It's a curveball, but Zendaya might work for this. Who do I call to arrange a meeting?

I'm not sure how well The Fountainhead would be received by modern audiences. My immediate sentiment is that today's movie-goers would not like it. One Google search and you'll find words like "conservative" and "libertarian" attached to this book. The story's gender roles are critiqued as anti-feminist, which might not play with a liberal audience. There is controversy surrounding Howard and Dominique's relationship. The story's entire thesis of working for yourself rather than the greater good will rub some people the wrong way. However, its critique of mass media's ability to sway public opinion for an ulterior motive would ring true for modern audiences. Roark's pursuit of greatness and his refusal to bend his knee would still connect with teens that are just starting their adult lives.

I think that, to make this miniseries, we must act like Roark and not think of the audience at all.