Film
In 1949, Warner Bros. released a film based on the book, starring Gary Cooper as Howard Roark, Patricia Neal as Dominique Francon, Raymond Massey as Gail Wynand, and Kent Smith as Peter Keating. Rand, who had previous experience as a screenwriter, was hired to adapt her own novel. The film was directed by King Vidor. It grossed $2.1 million, $400,000 less than its production budget.[140] Critics panned the movie. Negative reviews appeared in publications ranging from newspapers such as The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, to movie industry outlets such as Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, to magazines such as Time and Good Housekeeping.[140][141]
In letters written at the time, Rand's reaction to the film was positive. She said it was the most faithful adaptation of a novel ever made in Hollywood.[142] and a "real triumph".[143] Sales of the novel increased as a result of interest spurred by the film.[144] She displayed a more negative attitude later, saying she disliked the entire movie and complaining about its editing, acting, and other elements.[145] Rand said she would never sell rights to another novel to a film company that did not allow her to pick the director and screenwriter, as well as edit the film.[146]
Various filmmakers have expressed interest in doing new adaptations of The Fountainhead, although none of these potential films has begun production. In the 1970s, writer-director Michael Cimino entered a deal to film his own script for United Artists starring Clint Eastwood as Roark, but postponed the project in favor of abortive biographical films on Janis Joplin and Frank Costello.[147][148] The deal collapsed after the failure of Cimino's 1980 film Heaven's Gate, which caused United Artists to refuse to finance any more of his films.[149] Cimino continued to hope to film the script until his death in 2016.[150]
In 1992, producer James Hill optioned the rights and selected Phil Joanou to direct.[151] In the 2000s, Oliver Stone was interested in directing a new adaptation; Brad Pitt was reportedly under consideration to play Roark.[152] In a March 2016 interview, director Zack Snyder expressed interest in doing a new film adaptation of The Fountainhead,[153] an interest he repeated in 2018.[154] Snyder said in 2020 that he was no longer pursuing the adaptation.[155] In 2024, he said that he unsuccessfully pitched a television series adaptation to Netflix.[156]
Play
Ivo van Hove staged a theatrical adaptation of the novel.The Dutch theater company Toneelgroep Amsterdam presented a Dutch-language adaptation for the stage at the Holland Festival in June 2014. The company's artistic director Ivo van Hove wrote and directed the adaptation. Ramsey Nasr played Howard Roark, with Halina Reijn playing Dominique Francon.[157] The four-hour production used video projections to show close-ups of the actors and Roark's drawings, as well as backgrounds of the New York skyline.[158][159] After its debut the production went on tour, appearing in Barcelona, Spain, in early July 2014,[160] and at the Festival d'Avignon in France later that month.[158] The play appeared at the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe in Paris in November 2016,[161] and at the LG Arts Center in Seoul from March 31 to April 2, 2017.[162][163] The play had its first American production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival, where it ran from November 28 to December 2, 2017.[164]
The European productions of the play received mostly positive reviews. The Festival d'Avignon production received positive from the French newspapers La Croix,[159] Les Échos,[165] and Le Monde,[166] as well as from the English newspaper The Guardian, whose reviewer described it as "electrifying theatre".[167] The French magazine Télérama gave the Avignon production a negative review, calling the source material inferior and complaining about the use of video screens on the set,[168] while another French magazine, La Terrasse, complimented the staging and acting of the Odéon production.[161]
American critics gave mostly negative reviews of the Next Wave Festival production. Helen Shaw's review for The Village Voice said the adaptation was unwatchable because it portrayed Rand's characters and views seriously without undercutting them[169] The reviewer for the Financial Times said the play was too long and that Hove had approached Rand's "noxious" book with too much reverence.[170] In a mixed review for The New York Times, critic Ben Brantley complimented Hove for capturing Rand's "sheer pulp appeal", but described the material as "hokum with a whole lot of ponderous speeches".[171] A review for The Huffington Post complimented van Hove's ability to portray Rand's message, but said the play was an hour too long.[172]
Television
The novel was adapted in Urdu for the Pakistan Television Network in the 1970s, under the title Teesra Kinara. The serial starred Rahat Kazmi, who also wrote the adaptation.[173] Kazmi's wife, Sahira Kazmi, played Dominique.[174]
The novel was parodied in an episode of the animated adventure series Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures[175] and in season 20 of the animated sitcom The Simpsons, in the last part of the episode "Four Great Women and a Manicure".[176]
Other adaptations
In 1944, Omnibook Magazine produced an abridged edition of the novel that was sold to members of the United States Armed Forces. Rand was annoyed that Bobbs-Merrill allowed the edited version to be published without her approval of the text.[177] King Features Syndicate approached Rand the following year about creating a condensed, illustrated version of the novel for syndication in newspapers. Rand agreed, provided that she could oversee the editing and approve the proposed illustrations of her characters, which were provided by Frank Godwin. The 30-part series began on December 24, 1945, and ran in over 35 newspapers.[178] Rand biographer Anne Heller complimented the adaptation, calling it "handsomely illustrated".[177]
To provide publicity for a translation of the novel into French, the Swiss publisher Jeheber allowed the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation to air a radio play adaptation in the late 1940s. Rand did not authorize the adaptation and learned about it through a letter from a Swiss fan in 1949.[179]
