Kickstarting John Galt: a behind-the-scenes look at the third and final Atlas Shrugged movie.

• Author: Doherty, Brian
• Position: Atlas Shrugged Part III: Who Is John Galt? - Interview

Last September, the producers of Atlas Shrugged Part III: Who Is John Galt? launched a Kickstarter campaign that ended up raising $446,000 to help fund the final installment of the film adaptation of Ayn Rand's 1957 novel about a world driven to the brink of collapse by overweening redistributionist government. The predictable response was cheap jokes from people whose (mis)understanding of Rand only went as far as: "She's that scary chick who valorizes businessmen and the market." Detractors assumed that asking people to freely support something they valued was altruistic and therefore un-Randian.

Producer and main financier of the trilogy John Aglialoro sees it differently. (As would anyone who understands Rand, whose novel The Fountainhead is a paean to an architect whose work goes unrewarded by the marketplace.) Rand believed in the glory of trading value for value-in this case, money for a film that the giver wants to see made. Aglialoro says he's proud of the hundreds of $1 contributions he received from people who he says told him: "I want to take some value of mine and place it where I see value."

Aglialoro is a successful businessman, named by Fortune magazine in 2007 as the 10th richest small business executive in the country. The first two movies in the trilogy were financial failures, losing him millions. So what's the business sense of plowing ahead? He says his latest project isn't primarily about money, but love.

Still, "we don't know that the trilogy will not make money," Aglialoro insists. "We know Part l did not and Part II did not." The combined production costs for all three will come to about $20 million, he says. "But I believe with this third piece--it's like a symphony. The adagio, what do you get out of it? It's boring to many people. They want the crescendo."

In an effort to drum up interest and cement their connection with the audience, the Atlas production team has been very transparent, creating a "Galt's Gulch Online" for supporters, inviting dozens of donors to visit the set, and frequently broadcasting live video from set during the shoot.

Associate Producer Scott DeSapio, who runs the film's online strategy, notes the novel has sold steadily for decades and still pulls in six figures in annual sales, "and you know how high the advertising budget is for that? Zero. It sells because people talk to people. And if we can make an Atlas that a [fan of the book] will feel comfortable recommending, then we've...