title: Atlas Shrugged

text: From conversations with Francisco, Dagny and Hank realize he is hurting his copper company intentionally, although they do not understand why. When the government imposes a directive that forbids employees from leaving their jobs and nationalizes all patents, Dagny violates the law by resigning in protest. To gain Hank's compliance, the government blackmails him with threats to publicize his affair with Dagny. After a major disaster in one of Taggart Transcontinental's tunnels, Dagny returns to work. On her return, she receives notice that Quentin Daniels is also quitting in protest, and she rushes across the country to convince him to stay.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: On her way to Daniels, Dagny meets a hobo with a story that reveals the motor was invented and abandoned by an engineer named John Galt, who is the inspiration for the common saying. When she chases after Daniels in a private plane, she crashes and discovers the secret behind the disappearances of business leaders: Galt is leading a strike of "the men of the mind". She has crashed in their hiding place, an isolated valley known as Galt's Gulch. As she recovers from her injuries, the strikers explain their motives, and she learns that the strikers include Francisco and many prominent people, such as her favorite composer, Richard Halley, and infamous pirate Ragnar Danneskjöld. Dagny falls in love with Galt, who asks her to join the strike.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: Reluctant to abandon her railroad, Dagny leaves Galt's Gulch, but finds the government has devolved into dictatorship. Francisco finishes sabotaging his mines and quits. After he helps stop an armed takeover of Hank's steel mill, Francisco convinces Hank to join the strike. Galt follows Dagny to New York, where he hacks into a national radio broadcast to deliver a three-hour speech that explains the novel's theme and Rand's Objectivism. The authorities capture Galt, unsuccessfully attempt to persuade him to lead the restoration of the country's economy, and torture him when he refuses. The government collapses, and the novel closes as Galt announces that the strikers can rejoin the world.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: Rand's stated goal for writing the novel was "to show how desperately the world needs prime movers and how viciously it treats them" and to portray "what happens to the world without them". The core idea for the book came to her after a 1943 telephone conversation with her friend Isabel Paterson, who asserted that Rand owed it to her readers to write fiction about her philosophy. Rand replied, "What if I went on strike? What if all the creative minds of the world went on strike?" Rand then began "Atlas Shrugged" to depict the morality of rational self-interest, by exploring the consequences of a strike by intellectuals refusing to supply their inventions, art, business leadership, scientific research, or new ideas to the rest of the world.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: Rand began the first draft of the novel on September 2, 1946. She initially thought it would be easy to write and completed quickly, but as she considered the complexity of the philosophical issues she wanted to address, she realized it would take longer. After ending a contract to write screenplays for Hal Wallis and finishing her obligations for the film adaptation of "The Fountainhead", Rand worked full-time on the novel that she tentatively titled "The Strike". By the summer of 1950, she had written 18 chapters; by September 1951, she had written 21 chapters and was working on the last of the novel's three sections.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: As Rand completed new chapters, she read them to a circle of young admirers who had begun gathering at her home to discuss philosophy. This group included Nathaniel Branden, his wife Barbara Branden, Barbara's cousin Leonard Peikoff, and economist Alan Greenspan. Progress on the novel slowed considerably in 1953, when Rand began working on Galt's lengthy radio address. She spent more than two years completing the speech, finishing it on October 13, 1955. The remaining chapters proceeded more quickly, and by November 1956 Rand was ready to submit the almost-completed manuscript to publishers.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: "Atlas Shrugged" was Rand's last completed work of fiction. It marked a turning point in her life—the end of her career as a novelist and the beginning of her role as a popular philosopher.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: Rand biographer Anne Heller traces some ideas that would go into "Atlas Shrugged" back to a never-written novel that Rand outlined when she was a student at Petrograd State University. The futuristic story featured an American heiress luring the most talented men away from a mostly communist Europe. The heiress would have had an assistant called "Eddie Willers", the name of Dagny's assistant in "Atlas Shrugged".


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: To depict the industrial setting of "Atlas Shrugged", Rand conducted research on the American railroad and steel industries. She toured and inspected a number of industrial facilities, such as the Kaiser Steel plant, visited facilities of the New York Central Railroad, and briefly operated a locomotive on the Twentieth Century Limited. Rand also used her previous research for an uncompleted screenplay about the development of the atomic bomb, including her interviews of J. Robert Oppenheimer, which influenced the character Robert Stadler and the novel's depiction of the development of "Project X".


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: Rand's descriptions of Galt's Gulch were based on the town of Ouray, Colorado, which Rand and her husband visited in 1951 when they were relocating from Los Angeles to New York. Other details of the novel were affected by the experiences and comments of her friends. For example, her portrayal of leftist intellectuals (such as the characters Balph Eubank and Simon Pritchett) was influenced by the college experiences of Nathaniel and Barbara Branden, and Alan Greenspan provided information on the economics of the steel industry.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: Libertarian writer Justin Raimondo described similarities between "Atlas Shrugged" and Garet Garrett's 1922 novel "The Driver", which is about an idealized industrialist named Henry Galt, who is a transcontinental railway owner trying to improve the world and fighting against government and socialism. Raimondo believed the earlier novel influenced Rand's writing in ways she failed to acknowledge, although there was no "word-for-word plagiarism“ and "The Driver" was published four years before Rand emigrated to the United States. Journalist Jeff Walker echoed Raimondo's comparisons in his book "The Ayn Rand Cult" and listed "The Driver" as one of several unacknowledged precursors to "Atlas Shrugged". In contrast, Chris Matthew Sciabarra said he "could not find any evidence to link Rand to Garrett" and considered Raimondo's claims to be "unsupported". "Liberty" magazine editor R. W. Bradford said Raimondo made an unconvincing comparison based on a coincidence of names and common literary devices.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: Due to the success of Rand's 1943 novel "The Fountainhead", she had no trouble attracting a publisher for "Atlas Shrugged". This was a contrast to her previous novels, which she had struggled to place. Even before she began writing it, she had been approached by publishers interested in her next novel. However, her contract for "The Fountainhead" gave the first option to its publisher, Bobbs-Merrill Company. After reviewing a partial manuscript, they asked her to discuss cuts and other changes. She refused, and Bobbs-Merrill rejected the book.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: Hiram Hayden, an editor she liked who had left Bobbs-Merrill, asked her to consider his new employer, Random House. In an early discussion about the difficulties of publishing a controversial novel, Random House president Bennett Cerf proposed that Rand should submit the manuscript to multiple publishers simultaneously and ask how they would respond to its ideas, so she could evaluate who might best promote her work. Rand was impressed by the bold suggestion and by her overall conversations with them. After speaking with a few other publishers from about a dozen who were interested, Rand decided multiple submissions were not needed; she offered the manuscript to Random House. Upon reading the portion Rand submitted, Cerf declared it a "great book" and offered Rand a contract. It was the first time Rand had worked with a publisher whose executives seemed enthusiastic about one of her books.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: When the completed manuscript exceeded 600,000 words, Cerf asked Rand to make cuts, but backed off when she compared the idea to cutting the Bible. With 1168 pages in the first edition, "Atlas Shrugged" is Rand's longest published book.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: Random House published the novel on October 10, 1957. The initial print run was 100,000 copies. The first paperback edition was published by New American Library in July 1959, with an initial run of 150,000. A 35th-anniversary edition was published by E. P. Dutton in 1992, with an introduction by Rand's heir, Leonard Peikoff. The novel has been translated into more than 30 languages.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: The working title of the novel was "The Strike", but Rand thought this title would reveal the mystery element of the novel prematurely. She was pleased when her husband suggested "Atlas Shrugged", previously the title of a single chapter, for the book. The title is a reference to Atlas, a Titan in Greek mythology, who is described in the novel as "the giant who holds the world on his shoulders". The significance of this reference appears in a conversation in which Francisco d'Anconia asks Rearden what advice he would give Atlas if "the greater [the Titan's] effort, the heavier the world bore down on his shoulders". With Rearden unable to answer, d'Anconia gives his own advice: "To shrug".


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: The novel is divided into three parts consisting of ten chapters each. Each part is named in honor of one of Aristotle's laws of logic: "Non-Contradiction" after the law of noncontradiction; "Either-Or", which is a reference to the law of excluded middle; and "A Is A" in reference to the law of identity. Each chapter also has a title; "Atlas Shrugged" is the only one of Rand's novels to use chapter titles.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: The story of "Atlas Shrugged" dramatically expresses Rand's ethical egoism, her advocacy of "rational selfishness", whereby all of the principal virtues and vices are applications of the role of reason as man's basic tool of survival (or a failure to apply it): rationality, honesty, justice, independence, integrity, productiveness, and pride. Rand's characters often personify her view of the archetypes of various schools of philosophy for living and working in the world. Robert James Bidinotto wrote, "Rand rejected the literary convention that depth and plausibility demand characters who are naturalistic replicas of the kinds of people we meet in everyday life, uttering everyday dialogue and pursuing everyday values. But she also rejected the notion that characters should be symbolic rather than realistic." and Rand herself stated, "My characters are never symbols, they are merely men in sharper focus than the audience can see with unaided sight. ... My characters are persons in whom certain human attributes are focused more sharply and consistently than in average human beings".


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: In addition to the plot's more obvious statements about the significance of industrialists to society, and the sharp contrast to Marxism and the labor theory of value, this explicit conflict is used by Rand to draw wider philosophical conclusions, both implicit in the plot and via the characters' own statements. "Atlas Shrugged" caricatures fascism, socialism, communism, and any state intervention in society, as allowing unproductive people to "leech" the hard-earned wealth of the productive, and Rand contends that the outcome of any individual's life is purely a function of their ability, and that any individual could overcome adverse circumstances, given ability and intelligence.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: The concept "sanction of the victim" is defined by Leonard Peikoff as "the willingness of the good to suffer at the hands of the evil, to accept the role of sacrificial victim for the 'sin' of creating value". Accordingly, throughout "Atlas Shrugged", numerous characters are frustrated by this sanction, as when Hank Rearden appears duty-bound to support his family, despite their hostility toward him; later, the principle is stated by Dan Conway: "I suppose somebody's got to be sacrificed. If it turned out to be me, I have no right to complain". John Galt further explains the principle: "Evil is impotent and has no power but that which we let it extort from us", and, "I saw that evil was impotent ... and the only weapon of its triumph was the willingness of the good to serve it".


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: Rand's view of the ideal government is expressed by John Galt: "The political system we will build is contained in a single moral premise: no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force", whereas "no rights can exist without the right to translate one's rights into reality—to think, to work and to keep the results—which means: the right of property". Galt himself lives a life of laissez-faire capitalism.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: In the world of "Atlas Shrugged," society stagnates when independent productive agencies are socially demonized for their accomplishments. This is in agreement with an excerpt from a 1964 interview with "Playboy" magazine, in which Rand states: "The action in "Atlas Shrugged" takes place at a time when society has reached the stage of dictatorship."


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: Rand also depicts public choice theory, such that the language of altruism is used to pass legislation nominally in the public interest ("e.g.", the "Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog Rule", and "The Equalization of Opportunity Bill"), but more to the short-term benefit of special interests and government agencies.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: Rand's heroes continually oppose "parasites", "looters", and "moochers" who demand the benefits of the heroes' labor. Edward Younkins describes "Atlas Shrugged" as "an apocalyptic vision of the last stages of conflict between two classes of humanity—the looters and the non-looters. The looters are proponents of high taxation, big labor, government ownership, government spending, government planning, regulation, and redistribution".


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: "Looters" are Rand's depiction of bureaucrats and government officials, who confiscate others' earnings by the implicit threat of force ("at the point of a gun"). Some officials execute government policy, such as those who confiscate one state's seed grain to feed the starving citizens of another; others exploit those policies, such as the railroad regulator who illegally sells the railroad's supplies for his own profit. Both use force to take property from the people who produced or earned it.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: "Moochers" are Rand's depiction of those unable to produce value themselves, who demand others' earnings on behalf of the needy, but resent the talented upon whom they depend, and appeal to "moral right" while enabling the "lawful" seizure by governments.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: The character Francisco d'Anconia indicates the role of "looters" and "moochers" in relation to money: "So you think that money is the root of all evil? ... Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. ... Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or the looters who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce."


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: The novel includes elements of mystery, romance, and science fiction. Rand referred to "Atlas Shrugged" as a mystery novel, "not about the murder of man's body, but about the murder—and rebirth—of man's spirit". Nonetheless, when asked by film producer Albert S. Ruddy if a screenplay could focus on the love story, Rand agreed and reportedly said, "That's all it ever was". Technological progress and intellectual breakthroughs in scientific theory appear in "Atlas Shrugged", leading some observers to classify it in the genre of science fiction. Fictional inventions such as Galt's motor, Rearden Metal, and Project X (a sonic weapon) are important to the plot. Science fiction historian John J. Pierce describes it as a "romantic suspense novel" that is "at least a borderline case" of science fiction, specifically libertarian science fiction based on its political themes. The novel's focus on philosophical issues, including ethics and metaphysics, marks it as a philosophical novel.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: "Atlas Shrugged" debuted at number 13 on "The New York Times" Best Seller list three days after its publication. It peaked at number 3 on December 8, 1957, and was on the list for 22 consecutive weeks. By 1984, its sales had exceeded five million copies. Sales of "Atlas Shrugged" increased following the financial crisis of 2007–2008. The novel's sales in 2009 exceeded 500,000 copies, and it sold 445,000 copies in 2011. As of 2019, the novel had sold 9 million copies.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: "Atlas Shrugged" was generally disliked by critics. Rand scholar Mimi Reisel Gladstein later wrote that "reviewers seemed to vie with each other in a contest to devise the cleverest put-downs"; one called it "execrable claptrap", while another said it showed "remorseless hectoring and prolixity". In the "Saturday Review", Helen Beal Woodward said that the novel was written with "dazzling virtuosity" but was "shot through with hatred". In "The New York Times Book Review", Granville Hicks similarly said the book was "written out of hate". The reviewer for "Time" magazine asked: "Is it a novel? Is it a nightmare? Is it Superman – in the comic strip or the Nietzschean version?" In "National Review", Whittaker Chambers called "Atlas Shrugged" "sophomoric" and "remarkably silly", and said it "can be called a novel only by devaluing the term". Chambers argued against the novel's implicit endorsement of atheism and said the implicit message of the novel is akin to "Hitler's National Socialism and Stalin's brand of Communism": "To a gas chamber—go!"


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: There were some positive reviews. Richard McLaughlin, reviewing the novel for "The American Mercury", described it as a "long overdue" polemic against the welfare state with an "exciting, suspenseful plot", although unnecessarily long. He drew a comparison with the antislavery novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin", saying that a "skillful polemicist" did not need a refined literary style to have a political impact. Journalist and book reviewer John Chamberlain, writing in the "New York Herald Tribune", found "Atlas Shrugged" satisfying on many levels: as science fiction, as a "philosophical detective story", and as a "profound political parable".


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: "Atlas Shrugged" has attracted an energetic and committed fan base. Each year, the Ayn Rand Institute donates 400,000 copies of works by Rand, including "Atlas Shrugged", to high school students. According to a 1991 survey done for the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club, "Atlas Shrugged" was ranked second among the books that made the most difference in the lives of 17 out of 2,032 Book-of-the-Month club members who responded, between the Bible and M. Scott Peck's "The Road Less Traveled". Modern Library's 1998 nonscientific online poll of the 100 best novels of the 20th century found "Atlas" rated No. 1, although it was not included on the list chosen by the Modern Library board of authors and scholars. The 2018 PBS "Great American Read" television series found "Atlas Shrugged" rated number 20 out of 100 novels, based on a YouGov survey "asking Americans to name their most-loved novel".


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: Rand's impact on contemporary libertarian thought has been considerable. The title of one libertarian magazine, "Reason: Free Minds, Free Markets", is taken from John Galt, the hero of "Atlas Shrugged", who argues that "a free mind and a free market are corollaries". In a tribute written on the 20th anniversary of the novel's publication, libertarian philosopher John Hospers praised it as "a supreme achievement, guaranteed of immortality". In 1997, the libertarian Cato Institute held a joint conference with The Atlas Society, an Objectivist organization, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the publication of "Atlas Shrugged". At this event, Howard Dickman of "Reader's Digest" stated that the novel had "turned millions of readers on to the ideas of liberty" and said that the book had the important message of the readers' "profound right to be happy".


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: Rand's former business partner and lover Nathaniel Branden expressed differing views of "Atlas Shrugged". He was initially quite favorable to it, and even after he and Rand ended their relationship, he still referred to it in an interview as "the greatest novel that has ever been written", although he found "a few things one can quarrel with in the book". However, in 1984 he argued that "Atlas Shrugged" "encourages emotional repression and self-disowning" and that Rand's works contained contradictory messages. He criticized the potential psychological impact of the novel, stating that Galt's recommendation to respond to wrongdoing with "contempt and moral condemnation" clashes with the view of psychologists who say this only causes the wrongdoing to repeat itself.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: The Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises admired the unapologetic elitism he saw in Rand's work. In a letter to Rand written a few months after the novel's publication, he said it offered "a cogent analysis of the evils that plague our society, a substantiated rejection of the ideology of our self-styled 'intellectuals' and a pitiless unmasking of the insincerity of the policies adopted by governments and political parties ... You have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them: you are inferior and all the improvements in your conditions which you simply take for granted you owe to the efforts of men who are better than you."


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: Murray Rothbard, another Austrian School economist, wrote a letter to Rand in 1958 in which he praised the book as "an infinite treasure house" and "not merely the greatest novel ever written, [but] one of the very greatest books ever written, fiction or nonfiction". Rothbard soon distanced himself from Rand due to various disagreements in philosophy, and in the early 1960s he wrote a satirical one act play titled "Mozart Was a Red" that spoofed Rand and the novel.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: In the years immediately following the novel's publication, many American conservatives, such as William F. Buckley, Jr., strongly disapproved of Rand and her Objectivist message. In addition to the strongly critical review by Whittaker Chambers, Buckley solicited a number of critical pieces: Russell Kirk called Objectivism an "inverted religion", Frank Meyer accused Rand of "calculated cruelties" and her message, an "arid subhuman image of man", and Garry Wills regarded Rand a "fanatic".


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: In the 21st century, the novel was referred to more positively by some conservatives. In 2005, Republican Congressman Paul Ryan said that Rand was "the reason I got into public service", and he required his staff members to read "Atlas Shrugged", although in 2012 he said his supposed devotion to Rand was "an urban legend". In 2006, Clarence Thomas, an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, cited "Atlas Shrugged" as among his favorite novels. Following the financial crisis of 2007–2008, conservative commentators suggested the book as a warning against a socialistic reaction to the crisis. Conservative commentators Neal Boortz, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh offered praise of the book on their respective radio and television programs. In January 2009, conservative writer Stephen Moore wrote an article in "The Wall Street Journal" titled ""Atlas Shrugged" From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years", and two months later Republican Congressman John Campbell said, "People are starting to feel like we're living through the scenario that happened in "Atlas Shrugged"." Outside of the US, the novel has been cited as an influence by politicians such as Siv Jensen in Norway and Ayelet Shaked in Israel.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: References to "Atlas Shrugged" have appeared in a variety of other popular entertainments. In the first season of the drama series "Mad Men", Bert Cooper urges Don Draper to read the book, and Don's sales pitch tactic to a client indicates he has been influenced by the strike plot. Less positive mentions of the novel occur in episodes of the animated comedies "Futurama", where it appears among the library of books flushed down to the sewers to be read only by grotesque mutants, and "South Park", where a newly literate character gives up on reading after experiencing "Atlas Shrugged". The critically acclaimed 2007 video game "BioShock" is widely considered to be a response to "Atlas Shrugged". The story depicts a society that has collapsed due to Objectivism, and significant characters in the game owe their naming to Rand's work, which the game's creator Ken Levine found "really fascinating".


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: In 2013, it was announced that Galt's Gulch, a settlement for libertarian devotees named for John Galt's safe haven, would be established near Santiago in Chile, but the project collapsed amid accusations of fraud.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: "Atlas Shrugged" was a finalist for the US National Book Award for Fiction in 1958, but lost to "The Wapshot Chronicle" by John Cheever. In 1983, it was one of the first two books given the Prometheus Awards' Hall of Fame Award for libertarian science fiction, alongside "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: A film adaptation of "Atlas Shrugged" was in "development hell" for nearly 40 years. In 1972, Albert S. Ruddy approached Rand to produce a cinematic adaptation. Rand insisted on having final script approval, which Ruddy refused to give her, thus preventing a deal. In 1978, Henry and Michael Jaffe negotiated a deal for an eight-hour "Atlas Shrugged" television miniseries on NBC. Screenwriter Stirling Silliphant wrote the adaptation and obtained approval from Rand on the final script. When Fred Silverman became president of NBC in 1979, the project was scrapped.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: Rand, a former Hollywood screenwriter herself, began writing her own screenplay, but died in 1982 with only one-third of it finished. Her heir, Leonard Peikoff, sold an option to Michael Jaffe and Ed Snider. Peikoff would not approve the script they wrote, and the deal fell through. In 1992, investor John Aglialoro paid Peikoff over $1 million for an option with full creative control. Two new scripts – one by screenwriter Benedict Fitzgerald and another by Peikoff's wife, Cynthia Peikoff – were deemed inadequate, and Aglialoro refunded early investors in the project.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: In 1999, under Aglialoro's sponsorship, Ruddy negotiated a deal with Turner Network Television (TNT) for a four-hour miniseries, but the project was killed after TNT merged with AOL Time Warner. After the TNT deal fell through, Howard and Karen Baldwin obtained the rights while running Philip Anschutz's Crusader Entertainment. The Baldwins left Crusader to form Baldwin Entertainment Group in 2004 and took the rights to "Atlas Shrugged" with them. Michael Burns of Lions Gate Entertainment approached the Baldwins to fund and distribute "Atlas Shrugged". A draft screenplay was written by James V. Hart and rewritten by Randall Wallace, but was never produced.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: In 2015, the New York Times reported that Ruddy had come to an agreement with Aglialoro to make a new version of "Atlas Shrugged".


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: On November 17, 2022, producer Jeremy Boreing announced that conservative media company "The Daily Wire" optioned the rights to "Atlas Shrugged". The company plans to create a series based on the novel for the DailyWire+ video on demand service, in cooperation with the Bonfire Legend movie studio and Aglialoro's Atlas Distribution Company.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: In May 2010, Brian Patrick O'Toole and Aglialoro wrote a screenplay, intent on filming in June 2010. Stephen Polk was set to direct. However, Polk was fired and principal photography began on June 13, 2010, under the direction of Paul Johansson and produced by Harmon Kaslow and Aglialoro. This resulted in Aglialoro's retention of his rights to the property, which were set to expire on June 15, 2010. Filming was completed on July 20, 2010, and the movie was released on April 15, 2011. Taylor Schilling played Dagny Taggart and Grant Bowler played Hank Rearden.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: The film was met with a generally negative reception from professional critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 12% based on 52 reviews, with an average score of 3.8 out of 10. The film had under $5 million in total box office receipts, considerably less than the estimated $20 million invested by Aglialoro and others. The poor box office and critical reception made Aglialoro reconsider his plans for the rest of the trilogy, but other investors convinced him to continue.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: On February 2, 2012, Kaslow and Aglialoro announced they had raised $16 million to fund "". Principal photography began on April 2, 2012; the producers hoped to release the film before the US presidential election in November. Because the cast for the first film had not been contracted for the entire trilogy, different actors were cast for all the roles. Samantha Mathis played Dagny, with Jason Beghe as Hank and Esai Morales as Francisco d'Anconia.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: The film was released on October 12, 2012, without a special screening for critics. It earned $1.7 million on 1012 screens for the opening weekend, which at that time ranked as the 109th worst opening for a film in wide release. Critical response was highly negative; Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 4% rating based on 23 reviews, with an average score of 3.2 out of 10. The film's final box office total was $3.3 million.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: The third part in the series, "", was released on September 12, 2014. Dagny was played by Laura Regan, with Rob Morrow as Hank, Kristoffer Polaha as John Galt, and Joaquim de Almeida as Francisco. The movie opened on 242 screens and grossed $461,179 on its opening weekend; the final box office total was $851,690. It was reviewed unfavorably by critics, holding a 0% at Rotten Tomatoes based on 10 reviews, with an average score of 1.8 out of 10.


title: Atlas Shrugged

text: "Atlas Shrugged" has been adapted twice as stage plays in German. In 2013, , director of the Schauspiel Köln in Cologne, staged ("The Strike"), a four-hour adaptation co-written by Bachmann and . Bachmann had begun the adaptation eight years earlier, but the theaters he worked for prior to Schauspiel Köln were dismissive of the idea. In January 2021, director Nicolas Stemann presented a three-hour musical adaptation, also titled , in Zürich, Switzerland. Stemann's version of the story from the novel is presented as a story within a story being staged by a "Church of Ayn Rand" that is associated with the alt-right and white supremacy.


title: Lewis Capaldi

text: Lewis Marc Capaldi ( ; born 7 October 1996) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and musician. He was nominated for the Critics' Choice Award at the 2019 Brit Awards. In March 2019, his single "Someone You Loved" topped the UK Singles Chart where it remained for seven weeks, and in November 2019, it reached number one on the US "Billboard" Hot 100; it was nominated at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards for Song of the Year and won the 2020 Brit Award for Song of the Year. Capaldi also won the 2020 Brit Award for Best New Artist.


title: Lewis Capaldi

text: On 17 May 2019, he released his debut album, "Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent", which remained at the top of the UK Albums Chart for six weeks. It later went on to become the best selling album of 2019 and 2020 in the UK, and "Someone You Loved" was the best selling single of 2019 in the UK. In May 2020, it was announced that Capaldi's song "Someone You Loved" had become the longest-running top 10 UK single of all time by a British artist.


title: Lewis Capaldi

text: Capaldi was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and lived there until he was four years old. Capaldi is of Scottish, Irish and Italian ancestry. He is the youngest of four children. His birth came as a surprise to his family after his father underwent a vasectomy. Capaldi's passion for performing started after he sang on stage at the age of 4 on a family trip in France. He learned how to play guitar when he was nine. Soon, he began writing songs, and playing gigs by sneaking into pubs with the help of his eldest brother.


title: Lewis Capaldi

text: In 2014 Capaldi took part in a three-date tour as part of the "Hit the Road" project run by The Scottish Music Centre. He played in Dumfries, Edinburgh and Fort William alongside Jacob and Rory Green and Zoë Bestel. When he was 18, his manager Ryan Walter discovered him by an iPhone recording that was recorded in his bedroom and had uploaded to his SoundCloud account. The day after first contacting Capaldi, Walter flew from America to Britain to hear Capaldi play live. In 2016, Capaldi graduated with an HND in Music from New College Lanarkshire, Motherwell.


title: Lewis Capaldi

text: He released his first single "Bruises" independently on 31 March 2017. The song quickly amassed close to 28 million plays on Spotify worldwide, making him the fastest ever unsigned artist to reach 25 million plays on the platform. Shortly afterwards, he was signed to the German branch of Universal Music Group, and was assigned to the Vertigo Berlin division. His releases are distributed in the UK by Virgin EMI Records and in the US by Capitol Records. The track, as well as the singles "Lost on You" and "Fade" were featured on his first extended play "Bloom" and later on his debut album. After the release of the album, "Bruises" was re-released as a single. A music video for the song and a special EP containing various versions of the track were released, propelling for it to reach no.6 on the UK Singles Chart. He supported Rag'n'Bone Man on his European tour in November.


title: Lewis Capaldi

text: In January 2018, he joined Milky Chance on their North American leg of the "Blossom" tour. On 23 February, his collaboration "Rush" with Jessie Reyez was released. His music attracted attention from celebrities including Chloë Grace Moretz, Ellie Goulding, and Niall Horan. Subsequently, Horan invited Capaldi to support him on two dates on his Flicker World Tour at the Glasgow SEC Armadillo in March. In May, Capaldi joined Sam Smith on their The Thrill of It All European Tour, opening for Smith over 19 dates. He followed this by announcing a fourth headline UK and European tour, this time playing 2000 capacity venues across the UK and Europe, including two nights at Glasgow's Barrowland Ballroom, with both shows selling out. Capaldi was named as one of Vevo DSCVR 'Artists to Watch 2018' and he won Best Acoustic Act at the Scottish Alternative Music Awards. He was also long-listed for BBC Music's Sound of 2018. On 13 July Capaldi was named as one of two acts in BBC Radio 1's "Brit List", guaranteeing him three successive incremental Radio 1 playlist places. In August, Irish Indie rock band Kodaline invited Capaldi to open for them at a concert in Belfast. In addition to this, Capaldi was included in the line-ups for many festivals during the summer of 2018, including: Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Firefly, Mountain Jam, Osheaga, Reading & Leeds Festival, Rize and TRNSMT. On 8 November, Capaldi's second extended play "Breach", which included his single "Tough" was released.


title: Lewis Capaldi

text: The "Breach" track "Someone You Loved" became Capaldi's breakthrough single, charting in 29 countries. During his 2019 tour with Bastille, the song reached number one on the UK Singles Chart and remained at the position for 7 weeks. It also reached number one on the "Billboard" Hot 100, making him the first Scottish solo artist to top the US charts since Sheena Easton in 1981. The song received a Grammy nomination for Song of the Year. According to the IFPI, the song was the 9th biggest global single of 2019. Another "Breach" track "Grace" reached a new peak of no.9 in the UK that year. Both songs were included on his debut album "Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent". The instant grant single "Hold Me While You Wait" entered the UK Singles Chart at no. 4. The album was the biggest selling album in the UK in five years, spending five weeks at number one in its first six weeks of release.


title: Lewis Capaldi

text: Capaldi was nominated for the Brit Critics' Choice Award at the 2019 Brit Awards, but lost to Sam Fender. At the end of March, Capaldi supported "Picture This" at their shows in Ireland. In April, the video game "Days Gone" that had featured his self-written song "Days Gone Quiet" in the end credits was released. The song received nominations from the Game Audio Network Guild Awards and the NAVGTR Awards.


title: Lewis Capaldi

text: Over the summer of 2019, Capaldi performed at many festivals such as the Belsonic festival, where he opened for The Killers, and the Glastonbury Festival. On 5 August, he performed songs from his album with the Manchester Camerata for a special Live Lounge Symphony concert in Croxteth, Liverpool. From 16 to 26 August, he supported Ed Sheeran at the end of his Divide world tour, playing four gigs with him in Ipswich and Leeds. Towards the end of the year, an extended edition of his debut album was released along with the single "Before You Go", which became his second UK Singles Chart-topper on 31 January 2020.


title: Lewis Capaldi

text: Capaldi became the first artist to sell out an arena tour before the release of an album. The shows sold out in one second upon tickets becoming available, with Capaldi playing to over a quarter of a million people in March 2020. The initiative "LiveLive" [ ] was launched to help fans have a more comfortable experience at his concerts. At the 2020 Brit Awards, Capaldi received three nominations, winning two awards. Two songs written by Capaldi were also released that year: Rita Ora's "How to Be Lonely" and Sigala's "Lasting Lover".


title: Lewis Capaldi

text: In March 2021 Capaldi announced that he postponed all his upcoming shows to work on his upcoming sophomore album. It was announced in June that a documentary about Capaldi's career had been made. He returned in the summer of 2022 to play his postponed shows, including his headlining slots at the TRNSMT Festival, the Latitude Festival, and the Isle of Wight Festival.


title: Lewis Capaldi

text: The lead single for his second album "Forget Me" was released in September 2022 and it became his first song to debut at the top of the UK Singles Chart. His line of frozen pizzas called "Big Sexy Pizza" was also released that month. In October, Capaldi announced that his newest album is titled "Broken by Desire to Be Heavenly Sent" and that it will be released on 19 May 2023.


title: Lewis Capaldi

text: On his father's side, Capaldi's second cousin once removed is the actor Peter Capaldi, who appeared in his music video for "Someone You Loved". Capaldi is known for his social media presence, particularly his humorous, foul-mouthed videos. He is a football fan and supports Celtic F.C.


title: Lewis Capaldi

text: Capaldi started listening to heavy metal bands including Slipnot and Avenged Sevenfold through his eldest brother, then later developed his own musical taste from listening to pop-punk bands like Blink-182 and Busted and indie rock bands like Oasis and the View. He discovered a love for "soulful pop music" from the work of Paolo Nutini and Joe Cocker. Capaldi has expressed admiration for the 1975, the Macabees, the Arctic Monkeys, the Beatles, and Bob Dylan. Adele and Kings of Leon has also inspired his songwriting.


title: Trey Parker

text: Randolph Severn "Trey" Parker III (born October 19, 1969) is an American actor, animator, filmmaker, and composer. He is known for co-creating "South Park" (since 1997) and "The Book of Mormon" (2011) with his creative partner Matt Stone. Parker was interested in film and music as a child and at high school and attended the University of Colorado Boulder, where he met Stone. The two collaborated on various short films. They also co-wrote and co-starred in the feature-length musical "Cannibal! The Musical" (1993).


title: Trey Parker

text: Parker and Stone moved to Los Angeles and wrote their second film, "Orgazmo" (1997). Before the premiere of the film, "South Park" premiered on Comedy Central in August 1997. The duo possess full creative control of the show, and have produced music and video games based on it. A film based on the series, "" (1999), received good reviews from both critics and fans. Parker went on to write, produce, direct, and star in the satirical action film "" (2004), and, after several years of development, "The Book of Mormon" premiered on Broadway to good reviews.


title: Trey Parker

text: Parker has received five Primetime Emmy Awards for his work on "South Park", four Tony Awards and a Grammy Award for "The Book of Mormon", and an Academy Award nomination for the song "Blame Canada" from the "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut" movie, co-written with Marc Shaiman.


title: Trey Parker

text: Parker was born in Conifer, Colorado, the son of insurance saleswoman Sharon and geologist Randolph "Randy" Parker. He was a shy child who received "decent" grades and was involved in honors classes. He idolized Monty Python, which he began watching on television in the third grade. His later ventures into animation would bear considerable influence from Terry Gilliam. In the sixth grade, Parker wrote a sketch titled "The Dentist" and appeared in his school's talent show. He played the dentist and had a friend play the patient. The plot involved what can go wrong at the dentist; due to the amounts of fake blood involved, Parker's parents were called and were upset, with Parker later recalling that "the kindergartners were all crying and freaking out".


title: Trey Parker

text: Parker has described himself as "the typical big-dream kid" who envisioned a career in film and music. He made short films on the weekends with a group of friends, beginning when he was 14. His father had purchased him a video camera and the group continued making films until graduation. He became interested in pursuing music at 17, but only comedy-centered songs; he wrote and recorded a full-length comedy album, "Immature: A Collection of Love Ballads For The '80's Man", with friend David Goodman during this time. As a teenager, Parker developed a love for musical theatre, and joined the Evergreen Players, a venerable mountain community theater outside of Denver. At 14, he performed his first role as chorus member in "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" and "Flower Drum Song" and went on to also design sets for the community theater's production of "Little Shop of Horrors". In high school, he also played piano for the chorus and was president of the choir counsel. As Evergreen was nationally known for its choir program, Parker was a very popular high school student, connected to his position as the head of the choir. He was typically the lead in school plays and was also prom king. While in school, Parker had a part-time job at a Pizza Hut and was described as a film geek and music buff.


title: Trey Parker

text: Following his graduation from Evergreen High School in 1988, Parker spent a semester at Berklee College of Music before transferring to the University of Colorado Boulder. Parker majored in both film and Japanese. During his time there, he took a film class in which students were required to collaborate on projects. In the course, he met Matt Stone—a math major from the nearby town of Littleton—and the two immediately bonded over provocative, anti-authoritarian humor and Monty Python. Parker's first film was titled "Giant Beavers of Southern Sri Lanka" (1989), parodying Godzilla-style rampages with beavers; fellow student Jason McHugh later remarked that the idea nearly got him laughed out of class. Parker and Stone wrote and acted in many short films together, among those "First Date", "Man on Mars" and "Job Application". Parker later remarked that he and Stone would shoot a film nearly every week, but he has since lost most of them. Parker first used a construction paper animation technique on "American History" (1992), a short film made for his college animation class. It became an unexpected sensation, resulting in Parker's first award—a Student Academy Award. Parker recalled sitting in the auditorium in front of students from animation schools such as CalArts, saying, "And there are all these Cal Arts kids behind me who had submitted these beautiful watercolor and pencil things. And here's my shitty construction-paper thing-which makes South Park look like Disney, by the way, and they're all fuming". He graduated with a double-major Bachelor of Arts degree in 1993.


title: Trey Parker

text: In 1992, Parker, Stone, McHugh, and Ian Hardin founded a production company named the Avenging Conscience, named after the D. W. Griffith film by the same name, which all four actively disliked. Parker again employed the cutout paper technique on Avenging Conscience's first production, "Jesus vs. Frosty" (1992), an animated short pitting the religious figure against Frosty the Snowman.


title: Trey Parker

text: The quartet created a three-minute trailer for a fictional film titled "Alferd Packer: The Musical". The idea was based on an obsession Parker had with Alferd Packer, a real nineteenth-century prospector accused of cannibalism. During this time, Parker had become engaged to long-time girlfriend Liane Adamo, but their relationship fell apart shortly before production on the trailer had begun. "Horribly depressed", Parker funneled his frustrations with her into the project, naming Packer's "beloved but disloyal" horse after her. The trailer became somewhat of a sensation among students at the school, leading Virgil Grillo, the chairman and founder of the university's film department, to convince the quartet to expand it to a feature-length film. Parker wrote the film's script, creating an "Oklahoma!"-style musical featuring ten original show tunes. The group raised $125,000 from family and friends and began shooting the film. The film was shot on Loveland Pass as winter was ending, and the crew endured the freezing weather. Parker—under the pseudonym Juan Schwartz—was the film's star, director and co-producer.


title: Trey Parker

text: "Alferd Packer: The Musical" premiered in Boulder in October 1993; "they rented a limousine that circled to ferry every member of the cast and crew from the back side of the block to the red carpet at the theater's entrance." The group submitted the film to the Sundance Film Festival, who did not respond. Parker told McHugh he had a "vision" they needed to be at the festival, which resulted in the group renting out a conference room in a nearby hotel and putting on their own screenings. MTV did a short news segment on "The Big Picture" regarding the film, and they made industry connections through the festival. They intended to sell video rights to the film for $1 million and spend the remaining $900,000 to create another film. The film was instead sold to Troma Entertainment in 1996 where it was retitled "Cannibal! The Musical", and upon the duo's later success, it became their biggest-selling title. It has since been labeled a "cult classic" and adapted into a stage play by community theater groups and even high schools nationwide.


title: Trey Parker

text: Following the film's success, the group, sans Hardin, moved to Los Angeles. Upon arrival, they met a lawyer for the William Morris Agency who connected them with producer Scott Rudin. As a result, the duo acquired a lawyer, an agent, and a script deal. Despite initially believing themselves to be on the verge of success, the duo struggled for several years. Stone slept on dirty laundry for upwards of a year because he could not afford to purchase a mattress. They unsuccessfully pitched a children's program titled "Time Warped" to Fox Kids, which would have involved fictionalized stories of people in history. The trio created two separate pilots, spaced a year apart, and despite the approval of Fox Broadcasting Company development executive Pam Brady, the network disbanded the Fox Kids division.


title: Trey Parker

text: David Zucker, who was a fan of "Cannibal!", contacted the duo to produce a 15-minute short film for Seagram to show at a party for its acquisition of Universal Studios. Due to a misunderstanding, Parker and Stone improvised much of the film an hour before it was shot, creating it as a spoof of 1950s instructional videos. The result, "Your Studio and You", features numerous celebrities, including Sylvester Stallone, Demi Moore, and Steven Spielberg. "You could probably make a feature film out of the experience of making that movie because it was just two dudes from college suddenly directing Steven Spielberg," Parker later remarked, noting that the experience was difficult for the two.


title: Trey Parker

text: During the time between shooting the pilots for "Time Warped", Parker penned the script for a film titled "Orgazmo", which later entered production. Half of the budget for the picture came from a Japanese porn company called Kuki, who wanted to feature its performers in mainstream Western media. Independent distributor October Films purchased the rights to the film for one million dollars after its screening at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film received an NC-17 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, which resulted in the poor box office performance of the film. Parker and Stone attempted to negotiate with the organization on what to delete from the final print, but the MPAA would not give specific notes. The duo later theorized that the organization cared less because it was an independent distributor which would bring it significantly less money.


title: Trey Parker

text: Parker and Stone also made a short film called "The Spirit of Christmas" (although it is now usually called "Jesus vs. Frosty"). Brian Graden (then at Fox) liked this short and asked Parker and Stone to produce a video greeting card (for which he paid with his own money) he could send to friends, this film is now usually known as "Jesus vs. Santa". Both "Jesus vs. Frosty" and "Jesus vs. Santa" had "The Spirit of Christmas" as opening credits. Graden sent the film on VHS to several industry executives in Hollywood; meanwhile, someone digitized the short film and put it on Internet, where it became one of the first viral videos. As "Jesus vs. Santa" became more popular, Parker and Stone began talks of developing the short into a television series called "South Park". They first pitched the show to Fox, but the network refused to pick it up due to not wanting to air a show that included the talking poo character Mr. Hankey. The two were initially skeptical of possible television deals, noting that previous endeavors had not turned out successful, but then entered negotiations with both MTV and Comedy Central. Parker preferred the show be produced by Comedy Central, fearing that MTV would turn it into a kids show. When Comedy Central executive Doug Herzog watched the short, he commissioned for it to be developed into a series.


title: Trey Parker

text: The pilot episode of "South Park" was made on a budget of $300,000, and took between three to three and a half months to complete, and animation took place in a small room at Celluloid Studios, in Denver, Colorado, during the summer of 1996. Similarly to Parker and Stone's Christmas shorts, the original pilot was animated entirely with traditional cut paper stop-motion animation techniques. The idea for the town of South Park came from the real Colorado basin of the same name where, according to the creators, a lot of folklore and news reports originated about "UFO sightings, and cattle mutilations, and Bigfoot sightings."


title: Trey Parker

text: At the time, Comedy Central had a low distribution of just 21 million subscribers. The company marketed the show aggressively before its launch, billing it as "why they created the V-chip." The resulting buzz led to the network earning an estimated $30 million in T-shirts sales alone before the first episode was even aired. "South Park" premiered in August 1997 and immediately became one of the most popular shows on cable television, averaging consistently between 3.5 and 5.5 million viewers. The show transformed the fledgling network into "a cable industry power almost overnight." Due to the success of the series' first six episodes, Comedy Central requested an additional seven; the series completed its first season in February 1998. An affiliate of the MTV Network until then, Comedy Central decided, in part due to the success of "South Park", to have its own independent sales department. By the end of 1998, Comedy Central had sold more than $150 million worth of merchandise for the show, including T-shirts and dolls. Over the next few years, Comedy Central's viewership spiked largely due to "South Park", adding 3 million new subscribers in the first half of 1998 alone, and allowed the network to sign international deals with networks in several countries.


title: Trey Parker

text: Parker and Stone became celebrities as a result of the program's success; Parker noted that the success of "South Park" allowed him to pursue, for a time, a lifestyle that involved partying with women and "out-of-control binges" in Las Vegas. Their philosophy of taking every deal (which had surfaced as a result of their lack of trust in the early success of "South Park") led to their appearances in films, albums, and outside script deals. Among these included "BASEketball", a 1998 comedy film that became a critical and commercial flop, and rights to produce a prequel to "Dumb and Dumber", which was never completed.


title: Trey Parker

text: Parker and Stone signed a deal with Comedy Central in April 1998 that contracted the duo to producing "South Park" episodes until 1999, gave them a slice of the lucrative spinoff merchandising the show generated within its first year, as well as an unspecified seven-figure cash bonus to bring the show to the big screen, in theaters. During the time, the team was also busy writing the second and third seasons of the series, the former of which Parker and Stone later described as "disastrous". As such, they figured the phenomenon would be over soon, and they decided to write a personal, fully committed musical. Parker and Stone fought with the MPAA to keep the film R-rated; for months the ratings board insisted on the more prohibitive NC-17. The film was only certified an R rating two weeks prior to its release, following contentious conversations between Parker/Stone, Rudin, and Paramount Pictures. Parker felt very overwhelmed and overworked during the production process of the film, especially between April and the film's opening in late June. He admitted that press coverage, which proclaimed the end of "South Park" was near, bothered him. "" opened in cinemas in June 1999 and received critical acclaim while grossing $83 million at the box office.


title: Trey Parker

text: Parker and Stone continue to write, direct, and voice most characters on "South Park". Over time, the show has adopted a unique production process, in which an entire episode is written, animated and broadcast in one week. Parker and Stone state that subjecting themselves to a one-week deadline creates more spontaneity amongst themselves in the creative process, which they feel results in a funnier show. Although initial reviews for the show were negative in reference to its crass humor, the series has received numerous accolades, including five Primetime Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, and numerous inclusions in various publications' lists of greatest television shows. Though its viewership is lower than it was at the height of its popularity in its earliest seasons, "South Park" remains one of the highest-rated series on Comedy Central. In 2012, "South Park" cut back from producing 14 episodes per year (seven in the spring and seven in the fall) to a single run of 10 episodes in the fall, to allow the duo to explore other projects the rest of the year. As of 2019 the show is renewed through 2022, when it will reach its twenty-sixth season. The show's twenty-third season premiered on September 25, 2019.


title: Trey Parker

text: "South Park" has continued, becoming an enterprise worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The franchise has also expanded to music and video games. Comedy Central released various albums, including "" and "Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics", in the late 1990s. The song "Chocolate Salty Balls" (as sung by the character Chef) was released as a single in the UK in 1998 to support the "Chef Aid: The South Park Album" and became a number one hit. Parker and Stone had little to do with the development of video games based on the series that were released at this time, but took full creative control of "", a 2014 video game based on the series that received positive reviews and for which they shared (with Eric Fenstermaker) the 2014 "Writing In A Comedy" and Parker won the "Performance in a Comedy, Supporting" award by National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers (NAVGTR). Broadcast syndication rights to "South Park" were sold in 2003, and all episodes are available for free full-length on-demand legal streaming on the official South Park Studios website. In 2007, the duo, with the help of their lawyer, Kevin Morris, cut a 50–50 joint venture with Comedy Central on all revenue not related to television; this includes digital rights to "South Park", as well as films, soundtracks, T-shirts and other merchandise, in a deal worth $75 million.


title: Trey Parker

text: In August 2021, Parker and Stone signed a $900 million deal with ViacomCBS to renew the series for six additional series and 14 projects on Paramount+.


title: Trey Parker

text: In 2000, Parker and Stone began plotting a television sitcom starring the winner of the 2000 presidential election. The duo were "95 percent sure" that Democratic candidate Al Gore would win, and tentatively titled the show "Everybody Loves Al". Parker said the producers did not want to make fun of politics: the main goal was to parody sitcom tropes, such as a lovable main character, the sassy maid, and the wacky neighbor. They threw a party the night of the election with the writers, with intentions to begin writing the following Monday and shooting the show in January 2001 with the inauguration. With the confusion of whom the President would be, the show's production was pushed back. The show was filmed at Sony Pictures Studios, and was the first time Parker and Stone shot a show on a production lot.


title: Trey Parker

text: Although "That's My Bush!", which ran between April and May 2001, received a fair amount of publicity and critical notice, according to Stone and Parker, the cost per episode was too high, "about $1 million an episode." Comedy Central officially cancelled the series in August 2001 as a cost-cutting move; Stone was quoted as saying "A super-expensive show on a small cable network...the economics of it were just not going to work." Comedy Central continued the show in reruns, considering it a creative and critical success. Parker believed the show would not have survived after the September 11 attacks anyway, and Stone agreed, saying the show would not "play well". During this time, the duo also signed a deal with Shockwave.com to produce 39 animated online shorts, in which they would retain full artistic control; the result, "Princess", was rejected after only two episodes.


title: Trey Parker

text: In 2002, the duo began working on "", a satire of big-budget action films and their associated clichés and stereotypes, with particular humorous emphasis on the global implications of the politics of the United States. The film was inspired by the 1960s British marionette series, "Thunderbirds".


title: Trey Parker

text: Starring puppets, "Team America" was produced using a crew of about 200 people, which sometimes required four people at a time to manipulate a marionette. Although the filmmakers hired three dozen highly skilled marionette operators, execution of some very simple acts by the marionettes proved to be very difficult, with a simple shot such as a character drinking taking a half-day to complete successfully. The deadline for the film's completion took a toll on both filmmakers, as did various difficulties in working with puppets, with Stone, who described the film as "the worst time of [my] life", resorting to coffee to work 20-hour days and sleeping pills to go to bed. The film was barely completed in time for its October release date, but reviews were positive and the film made a modest sum at the box office.


title: Trey Parker

text: Parker and Stone, alongside writer-composer Robert Lopez, began working on a musical centering on Mormonism during the production of "Team America". Lopez, a fan of "South Park" and creator of the puppet musical "Avenue Q", met with the duo after a performance of the musical, where they conceived the idea. The musical, titled "The Book of Mormon: The Musical of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints", was worked on over a period of several years; working around their "South Park" schedule, they flew between New York City and Los Angeles often, first writing songs for the musical in 2006. Developmental workshops began in 2008, and the crew embarked on the first of a half-dozen workshops that would take place during the next four years. Originally, producer Scott Rudin planned to stage "The Book of Mormon" off-Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop in summer 2010, but opted to premiere it directly on Broadway, "[s]ince the guys [Parker and Stone] work best when the stakes are highest."


title: Trey Parker

text: After a frantic series of rewrites, rehearsals, and previews, "The Book of Mormon" premiered on Broadway at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on March 24, 2011. "The Book of Mormon" received broad critical praise for the plot, score, actors' performances, direction and choreography. A became the highest-charting Broadway cast album in over four decades. The musical received nine Tony Awards, one for Best Musical, and a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. The production has since expanded to two national tours, a Chicago production, UK production, and as of 2014 Parker and Stone had confirmed that a film adaption was in pre-production.


title: Trey Parker

text: With sufficient funds from their work on "South Park" and "The Book of Mormon", the duo announced plans to create their own production studio, Important Studios, in January 2013. The studio will approve projects ranging from films to television to theatre.


title: Trey Parker

text: On April 13, 2016, Universal Pictures announced Trey Parker would voice the villain Balthazar Bratt in "Despicable Me 3." The film, released in June 2017, was Parker's first voice role not scripted by either him or Matt Stone.


title: Trey Parker

text: In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Parker, Stone, and Peter Serafinowicz created a web series, "Sassy Justice". The series uses deepfake technology to insert unrelated celebrities and politicians into the fictional world of a television reporter. The first episode was posted to YouTube on October26, 2020. The team was originally assembled for a film project that was interrupted due to the pandemic, who made the video based on a series of impressions that Serafinowicz developed of a "sassy" Donald Trump. The creators have a handful of shorter videos alongside a 15-minute first episode that may be turned into an ongoing series, film, or other type of project.


title: Trey Parker

text: In 2021, Stone and Parker signed a $900 million deal with Paramount Global to make six additional seasons of "South Park" and 14 movies in the "South Park" universe for streaming.


title: Trey Parker

text: On January 13, 2022, it was announced Parker will produce an untitled film with Matt Stone through their now-renamed production company Parker County and Kendrick Lamar and Dave Free's multi-disciplinary media company PGLang. It will be distributed by Paramount Pictures. The live-action film comedy, written by Vernon Chatham, addresses racial issues. Production is expected to begin in the spring of 2024.


title: Trey Parker

text: Parker married Emma Sugiyama in 2006. The officiant was 1970s sitcom producer Norman Lear. The marriage ended in divorce in 2008.


title: Trey Parker

text: Parker subsequently began a relationship with Boogie Tillmon, whom he later married in 2014. Parker gained a stepson through this relationship. Their daughter, Betty Boogie Parker, was born in 2013. The couple divorced in 2019, citing irreconcilable differences. While they remain divorced, they have since reconciled to co-parent their child.


title: Trey Parker

text: Parker resides in Los Angeles, California. He owns properties in Steamboat Springs, Colorado; Kauai, Hawaii; Seattle, Washington; and Midtown Manhattan in New York City.


title: Trey Parker

text: In a September 2006 edition of the ABC News program "Nightline", Parker expressed his views on religion, stating that he believes in "a God" and that "there is knowledge that humanity does not yet possess" while cautioning that it would take a long time to explain exactly what he meant by his belief in God. Parker believes all religions are "silly". He stated: "All the religions are super funny to me... The story of Jesus makes no sense to me. God sent His only Son. Why could God only have one son and why would He have to die? It's just bad writing, really. And it's really terrible in about the second act." Parker further remarked, Basically... out of all the ridiculous religion stories which are greatly, wonderfully ridiculous—the silliest one I've ever heard is, 'Yeah... there's this big giant universe and it's expanding, it's all gonna collapse on itself and we're all just here just 'cause... just <nowiki>'</nowiki>"cause"'. That, to me, is the most ridiculous explanation ever.


title: Trey Parker

text: A 2001 Los Angeles Times article described Parker as "not overly political" and quoted him as saying he was "a registered Libertarian". In 2004, Parker summed up his views with the comment:


title: Trey Parker

text: What we're sick of—and it's getting even worse—is: you either like Michael Moore or you wanna fuckin' go overseas and shoot Iraqis. There can't be a middle ground. Basically, if you think Michael Moore's full of shit, then you are a super-Christian right-wing whatever. And we're both just pretty middle-ground guys. We find just as many things to rip on on the left as we do on the right. People on the far left and the far right are the same exact person to us.


title: British Airways

text: British Airways (BA) is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in London, England, near its main hub at Heathrow Airport.


title: British Airways

text: The airline is the second largest UK-based carrier, based on fleet size and passengers carried, behind easyJet. In January 2011 BA merged with Iberia, creating the International Airlines Group (IAG), a holding company registered in Madrid, Spain. IAG is the world's third-largest airline group in terms of annual revenue and the second-largest in Europe. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and in the FTSE 100 Index. British Airways is the first passenger airline to have generated more than US$1 billion on a single air route in a year (from 1 April 2017, to 31 March 2018, on the New York-JFK - London-Heathrow route).


title: British Airways

text: BA was created in 1974 after a British Airways Board was established by the British government to manage the two nationalised airline corporations, British Overseas Airways Corporation and British European Airways, and two regional airlines, Cambrian Airways and Northeast Airlines. On 31 March 1974, all four companies were merged to form British Airways. However, it marked 2019 as its centenary based on predecessor companies. After almost 13 years as a state company, BA was privatised in February 1987 as part of a wider privatisation plan by the Conservative government. The carrier expanded with the acquisition of British Caledonian in 1987, Dan-Air in 1992, and British Midland International in 2012.


title: British Airways

text: It is a founding member of the Oneworld airline alliance, along with American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Qantas, and the now-defunct Canadian Airlines. The alliance has since grown to become the third-largest, after SkyTeam and Star Alliance.


title: British Airways

text: Proposals to establish a joint British airline, combining the assets of the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) and British European Airways (BEA) were first raised in 1953 as a result of difficulties in attempts by BOAC and BEA to negotiate air rights through the British colony of Cyprus. Increasingly BOAC was protesting that BEA was using its subsidiary Cyprus Airways to circumvent an agreement that BEA would not fly routes further east than Cyprus, particularly to the increasingly important oil regions in the Middle East. The chairman of BOAC, Miles Thomas, was in favour of a merger as a potential solution to this disagreement and had backing for the idea from the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, Rab Butler. However, opposition from the Treasury blocked the proposal.


title: British Airways

text: Consequently, it was only following the recommendations of the 1969 Edwards Report that a new British Airways Board, managing both BEA and BOAC, and the two regional British airlines Cambrian Airways based at Cardiff, and Northeast Airlines based at Newcastle upon Tyne, was constituted on 1 April 1972. Although each airline's branding was maintained initially, two years later the British Airways Board unified its branding, effectively establishing British Airways as an airline on 31 March 1974.


title: British Airways

text: Following two years of fierce competition with British Caledonian, the second-largest airline in the United Kingdom at the time, the Government changed its aviation policy in 1976 so that the two carriers would no longer compete on long-haul routes.


title: British Airways

text: British Airways and Air France operated the supersonic airliner Aerospatiale-BAC Concorde, and the world's first supersonic passenger service flew in January 1976 from Heathrow Airport to Bahrain International Airport. Services to the US began on 24 May 1976 with a flight to Washington Dulles airport, and flights to New York JFK airport followed on 22 September 1977. Service to Singapore was established in co-operation with Singapore Airlines as a continuation of the flight to Bahrain. Following the Air France Concorde crash in Paris and a slump in air travel following the 11 September attacks in New York in 2001, it was decided to cease Concorde operations in 2003 after 27 years of service. The final commercial Concorde flight was BA002 from New York-JFK to London-Heathrow on 24 October 2003.


title: British Airways

text: In 1981 the airline was instructed to prepare for privatisation by the Conservative Thatcher government. Sir John King, later Lord King, was appointed chairman, charged with bringing the airline back into profitability. While many other large airlines struggled, King was credited with transforming British Airways into one of the most profitable air carriers in the world. The flag carrier was privatised and was floated on the London Stock Exchange in February 1987. British Airways effected the takeover of the UK's "second" airline, British Caledonian, in July of that same year.


title: British Airways

text: The formation of Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic in 1984 created a competitor for BA. The intense rivalry between British Airways and Virgin Atlantic culminated in the former being sued for libel in 1993, arising from claims and counterclaims over a "dirty tricks" campaign against Virgin. This campaign included allegations of poaching Virgin Atlantic customers, tampering with private files belonging to Virgin, and undermining Virgin's reputation in the city. As a result of the case BA management apologised "unreservedly", and the company agreed to pay £110,000 in damages to Virgin, £500,000 to Branson personally and £3 million legal costs. Lord King stepped down as chairman in 1993 and was replaced by his deputy, Colin Marshall, while Bob Ayling took over as CEO. Virgin filed a separate action in the US that same year regarding BA's domination of the trans-Atlantic routes, but it was thrown out in 1999.


title: British Airways

text: In 1992 British Airways expanded through the acquisition of the financially troubled Dan-Air, giving BA a much larger presence at Gatwick Airport. British Asia Airways, a subsidiary based in Taiwan, was formed in March 1993 to operate between London and Taipei. That same month BA purchased a 25% stake in the Australian airline Qantas and, with the acquisition of Brymon Airways in May, formed British Airways Citiexpress (later BA Connect). In September 1998, British Airways, along with American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Qantas, and Canadian Airlines, formed the Oneworld airline alliance. Oneworld began operations on 1 February 1999, and is the third-largest airline alliance in the world, behind SkyTeam and Star Alliance.


title: British Airways

text: Bob Ayling's leadership led to a cost savings of £750m and the establishment of a budget airline, Go, in 1998. The next year, however, British Airways reported an 84% drop in profits in its first quarter alone, its worst in seven years. In March 2000, Ayling was removed from his position and British Airways announced Rod Eddington as his successor. That year, British Airways and KLM conducted talks on a potential merger, reaching a decision in July to file an official merger plan with the European Commission. The plan fell through in September 2000. British Asia Airways ceased operations in 2001 after BA suspended flights to Taipei. Go was sold to its management and the private equity firm 3i in June 2001. Eddington would make further workforce cuts due to reduced demand following 11 September attacks in 2001, and BA sold its stake in Qantas in September 2004. In 2005 Willie Walsh, managing director of Aer Lingus and a former pilot, became the chief executive officer of British Airways. BA unveiled its new subsidiary OpenSkies in January 2008, taking advantage of the liberalisation of transatlantic traffic rights between Europe and the United States. OpenSkies flies non-stop from Paris to New York's JFK and Newark airports.


title: British Airways

text: In July 2008, British Airways announced a merger plan with Iberia, another flag carrier airline in the Oneworld alliance, wherein each airline would retain its original brand. The agreement was confirmed in April 2010, and in July the European Commission and US Department of Transport permitted the merger and began to co-ordinate transatlantic routes with American Airlines. On 6 October 2010 the alliance between British Airways, American Airlines and Iberia formally began operations. The alliance generates an estimated £230 million in annual cost-saving for BA, in addition to the £330 million which would be saved by the merger with Iberia. This merger was finalised on 21 January 2011, resulting in the International Airlines Group (IAG), the world's third-largest airline in terms of annual revenue and the second-largest airline group in Europe. Prior to merging, British Airways owned a 13.5% stake in Iberia, and thus received ownership of 55% of the combined International Airlines Group; Iberia's other shareholders received the remaining 45%. As a part of the merger, British Airways ceased trading independently on the London Stock Exchange after 23 years as a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.


title: British Airways

text: In September 2010 Willie Walsh, now CEO of IAG, announced that the group was considering acquiring other airlines and had drawn up a shortlist of twelve possible acquisitions. In November 2011 IAG announced an agreement in principle to purchase British Midland International from Lufthansa. A contract to purchase the airline was agreed the next month, and the sale was completed for £172.5 million on 30 March 2012. The airline established a new subsidiary based at London City Airport operating Airbus A318s.


title: British Airways

text: British Airways was the official airline partner of the London 2012 Olympic Games. On 18 May 2012 it flew the Olympic flame from Athens International Airport to RNAS Culdrose while carrying various dignitaries, including Lord Sebastian Coe, Princess Anne, the Olympics minister Hugh Robertson and the London Mayor Boris Johnson, along with the footballer David Beckham.


title: British Airways

text: On 27 May 2017, British Airways suffered a computer power failure. All flights were cancelled and thousands of passengers were affected. By the following day, the company had not succeeded in reestablishing the normal function of its computer systems. When asked by reporters for more information on the ongoing problems, British Airways stated "The root cause was a power supply issue which our affected our IT systems - we continue to investigate this" and declined to comment further. Willie Walsh later attributed the crash to an electrical engineer disconnecting the UPS and said there would be an independent investigation.


title: British Airways

text: Amidst the decline in the value of Iranian currency due to the reintroduction of US sanctions on Iran, BA announced that the Iranian route is "not commercially viable". As a result, BA decided to stop its services in Iran, effective 22 September 2018.


title: British Airways

text: In 2018, Ozwald Boateng to redesigned the company's historic uniforms, in honour of its approaching centenary, creating a new look for BA, while adhering to its traditional style.


title: British Airways

text: In 2019, as part of the celebrations of a centenary of airline operations in the United Kingdom, British Airways announced that four aircraft would receive retro liveries. The first of these is a Boeing 747-400 (G-BYGC), which was repainted into the former BOAC livery, which it retained until its retirement. Two more Boeing 747-400s were repainted with former British Airways liveries. One wore the "Landor" livery until its retirement in 2020 (G-BNLY), the other (G-CIVB), wore the original "Union Jack" livery until its retirement in 2020 also. An Airbus A319 was repainted into British European Airways livery, which is still flying as G-EUPJ.


title: British Airways

text: On 28 April 2020, the company set out plans to make up to 12,000 staff redundant because of the global collapse of air traffic due to the COVID-19 pandemic and that it may not reopen its operations at Gatwick airport. In July 2020, British Airways announced the immediate retirement of its entire 747-400 fleet, having originally intended to phase out the remaining 747s in 2024. The airline stated that its decision to bring forward the date was in part due to the downturn in air travel following the COVID-19 pandemic and to focus on incorporating more modern and fuel-efficient aircraft such as the Airbus A350 and Boeing 787. At the same time, British Airways also announced its intention to eliminate carbon emissions by 2050. On 28 July 2020, the company's cabin crew union issued an "industrial action" warning in order to prevent the 12,000 job cuts and pay cuts.


title: British Airways

text: On 12 October 2020, it was announced that Sean Doyle, CEO of Aer Lingus (also part of the IAG airline group) would succeed Álex Cruz as CEO.


title: British Airways

text: British Airways is the largest airline based in the United Kingdom in terms of fleet size, international flights, and international destinations and was, until 2008, the largest airline by passenger numbers. The airline carried 34.6 million passengers in 2008, but, rival carrier easyJet transported 44.5 million passengers that year, passing British Airways for the first time. British Airways holds a United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority Type A Operating Licence, it is permitted to carry passengers, cargo, and mail on aircraft with 20 or more seats.


title: British Airways

text: The airlines' head office, Waterside, stands in Harmondsworth, a village that is near Heathrow Airport. Waterside was completed in June 1998 to replace British Airways' previous head office, Speedbird House, located in Technical Block C on the grounds of Heathrow.


title: British Airways

text: British Airways' main base is at Heathrow Airport, but it also has a major presence at Gatwick Airport. It also has a base at London City Airport, where its subsidiary BA Cityflyer is the largest operator. BA had previously operated a significant hub at Manchester Airport. Manchester to New York (JFK) services were withdrawn; later all international services outside London ceased when the subsidiary BA Connect was sold. Passengers wishing to travel internationally with BA either to or from regional UK destinations must now transfer in London. Heathrow Airport is dominated by British Airways, which owns 40% of the slots available at the airport. The majority of BA services operate from Terminal 5, with the exception of some flights at Terminal 3 owing to insufficient capacity at Terminal 5.


title: British Airways

text: In August 2014, Willie Walsh advised the airline would continue to use flight paths over Iraq despite the hostilities there. A few days earlier Qantas announced it would avoid Iraqi airspace, while other airlines did likewise. The issue arose following the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine, and a temporary suspension of flights to and from Ben Gurion Airport during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict.


title: British Airways

text: BA CityFlyer, a wholly owned subsidiary, offers flights from its base at London City Airport to 23 destinations throughout Europe. It flies 22 Embraer E-190 aircraft. The airline focuses on serving the financial market, though it has recently expanded into the leisure market, offering routes to Ibiza, Palma and Venice.


title: British Airways

text: In March 2015, Qatar Airways purchased a 10% stake in International Airlines Group, the parent of British Airways and Iberia, for €1.2 billion (US$1.26 billion). By early 2020, this had increased to 25% costing a further US$600 million.


title: British Airways

text: BEA Helicopters was renamed British Airways Helicopters in 1974 and operated passenger and offshore oil support services until it was sold in 1986. Other former subsidiaries include the German airline Deutsche BA from 1997 until 2003 and the French airline Air Liberté from 1997 to 2001. British Airways also owned Airways Aero Association, the operator of the British Airways flying club based at Wycombe Air Park in High Wycombe, until it was sold to Surinder Arora in 2007.


title: British Airways

text: South Africa's Comair and Denmark's Sun Air of Scandinavia have been franchisees of British Airways since 1996. British Airways obtained a 15% stake in UK regional airline Flybe from the sale of BA Connect in March 2007. It sold the stake in 2014. BA also owned a 10% stake in InterCapital and Regional Rail (ICRR), the company that managed the operations of Eurostar (UK) Ltd from 1998 to 2010, when the management of Eurostar was restructured.


title: British Airways

text: With the creation of an Open Skies agreement between Europe and the United States in March 2008, British Airways started a new subsidiary airline called OpenSkies (previously known as "Project Lauren"). The airline started operations in June 2008, and flew directly from Paris—Orly to Newark. However it ceased operations on 2 September 2018 when it was replaced with Level flights on that route.


title: British Airways

text: British Airways Limited was established in 2012 to take over the operation of the premium service between London City Airport and New York-JFK. BA began the service in September 2009, using two Airbus A318s fitted with 32 lie-flat beds in an all business class cabin. Flights operate under the numbers previously reserved for Concorde: BA001 – BA004. The flights returned to be directly operated by British Airways plc in 2015.


title: British Airways

text: British Airways provides cargo services under the British Airways World Cargo brand. The division has been part of IAG Cargo since 2012 and is the world's twelfth-largest cargo airline based on total freight tonne-kilometres flown. BA World Cargo operates using the main BA fleet. Until the end of March 2014 they also operated three Boeing 747-8 freighter aircraft providing dedicated long-haul services under a wet lease arrangement from Global Supply Systems. The division operates an automated cargo centre at Heathrow Airport and handles freight at Gatwick and Stansted airports.


title: British Airways

text: On the merger with Iberia, the accounting reference date was changed from 31 March to 31 December; figures below are therefore for the years to 31 March up to 2010, for the nine months to 31 December 2010, and for the years to 31 December thereafter:


title: British Airways

text: In 2020, due to the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, British Airways had to reduce its 42,000-strong workforce by 12,000 jobs. According to the estimate by IAG, a parent company, it will take the air travel industry several years to return to previous performance and profitability levels.


title: British Airways

text: However, 2022 saw a dramatic increase in travel, and the company now faced a worker shortage, forcing it to cancel more than 1,500 flights.


title: British Airways

text: Staff working for British Airways are represented by a number of trade unions, pilots are represented by British Air Line Pilots' Association, cabin crew by British Airlines Stewards and Stewardesses Association (a branch of Unite the Union), while other branches of Unite the Union and the GMB Union represent other employees. Bob Ayling's management faced strike action by cabin crew over a £1 billion cost-cutting drive to return BA to profitability in 1997; this was the last time BA cabin crew would strike until 2009, although staff morale has reportedly been unstable since that incident. In an effort to increase interaction between management, employees, and the unions, various conferences and workshops have taken place, often with thousands in attendance.


title: British Airways

text: In 2005, wildcat action was taken by union members over a decision by Gate Gourmet not to renew the contracts of 670 workers and replace them with agency staff; it is estimated that the strike cost British Airways £30 million and caused disruption to 100,000 passengers. In October 2006, BA became involved in a civil rights dispute when a Christian employee was forbidden to wear a necklace bearing the cross, a religious symbol. BA's practice of forbidding such symbols has been publicly questioned by British politicians such as the former Home Secretary John Reid and the former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.


title: British Airways

text: Relations have been turbulent between BA and Unite. In 2007, cabin crew threatened strike action over salary changes to be imposed by BA management. The strike was called off at the last minute, British Airways losing £80 million. In December 2009, a ballot for strike action over Christmas received a high level of support, action was blocked by a court injunction that deemed the ballot illegal. Negotiations failed to stop strike action in March, BA withdrew perks for strike participants. Allegations were made by "The Guardian" newspaper that BA had consulted outside firms methods to undermine the unions: the story was later withdrawn. A strike was announced for May 2010, British Airways again sought an injunction. Members of the Socialist Workers Party disrupted negotiations between BA management and Unite to prevent industrial action. Further disruption struck when Derek Simpson, a Unite co-leader, was discovered to have leaked details of confidential negotiations online via Twitter. Industrial action re-emerged in 2017, this time by BA's Mixed Fleet flight attendants, whom were employed on much less favorable pay and terms and conditions compared to previous cabin staff who joined prior to 2010. A ballot for industrial action was distributed to Mixed Fleet crew in November 2016 and resulted in an overwhelming yes majority for industrial action. Unite described Mixed Fleet crew as on "poverty pay", with many Mixed Fleet flight attendants sleeping in their cars in between shifts because they cannot afford the fuel to drive home, or operating while sick as they cannot afford to call in sick and lose their pay for the shift. Unite also blasted BA of removing staff travel concessions, bonus payments and other benefits to all cabin crew who undertook industrial action, as well as strike-breaking tactics such as wet-leasing aircraft from other airlines and offering financial incentives for cabin crew not to strike. The first dates of strikes during Christmas 2016 were cancelled due to pay negotiations. Industrial action by Mixed Fleet commenced in January 2017 after rejecting a pay offer. Strike action continued throughout 2017 in numerous discontinuous periods, resulting in one of the longest running disputes in aviation history. On 31 October 2017, after 85 days of discontinuous industrial action, Mixed Fleet accepted a new pay deal from BA which ended the dispute.


title: British Airways

text: British Airways serves over 170 destinations in 70 countries, including eight domestic and 26 in the United States.


title: British Airways

text: British Airways co-founded the airline alliance Oneworld in 1999 with airlines American Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Qantas. British Airways is still currently a member of Oneworld.


title: British Airways

text: , the British Airways operates a fleet of 253 aircraft with 47 orders. BA operates a mix of Airbus narrow and wide-body aircraft, and Boeing wide-body aircraft, specifically the 777 and 787. In October 2020, British Airways retired its fleet of 747-400 aircraft. It was one of the largest operators of the 747, having previously operated the -100, -200, and -400 aircraft from 1974 (1969 with BOAC).


title: British Airways

text: The airline has its own engineering branch to maintain its aircraft fleet, this includes line maintenance at over 70 airports around the world. As well as hangar facilities at Heathrow and Gatwick airport it has two major maintenance centres at Glasgow and Cardiff Airports.


title: British Airways

text: The musical theme predominantly used on British Airways advertising has been ""The Flower Duet"" by Léo Delibes. This was first used in a 1984 advertisement directed by Tony Scott, in an arrangement by Howard Blake. It was reworked by Malcolm McLaren and Yanni for 1989's iconic "Face" advertisement, and subsequently appeared in many different arrangements between 1990 and 2010. The slogan 'the world's favourite airline', first used in 1983, was dropped in 2001 after Lufthansa overtook BA in terms of passenger numbers. Other advertising slogans have included "The World's Best Airline", "We'll Take More Care of You", "Fly the Flag", and "To Fly, To Serve".


title: British Airways

text: BA had an account for 23 years with Saatchi & Saatchi, an agency that created many of their most famous advertisements, including the influential "Face" campaign. Saatchi & Saatchi later imitated this advert for Silverjet, a rival of BA, after BA discontinued their business activities. Since 2007, BA has used Bartle Bogle Hegarty as its advertising agency.


title: British Airways

text: British Airways purchased the internet domain ba.com in 2002 from previous owner Bell Atlantic, 'BA' being the company's acronym and its IATA Airline code.


title: British Airways

text: British Airways is the official airline of the Wimbledon Championship tennis tournament, and was the official airline and tier one partner of the 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics. BA was also the official airline of England's bid to host the 2018 Football World Cup.


title: British Airways

text: The airline used a cartoon safety video from circa 2005 until 2017. Beginning on 1 September 2017 the airline introduced the new Comic Relief live action safety video hosted by Chabuddy G, with appearances by British celebrities Gillian Anderson, Rowan Atkinson, Jim Broadbent, Rob Brydon, Warwick Davis, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Ian McKellen, Thandie Newton, and Gordon Ramsay. A "sequel" video, also hosted by Chabuddy G, was released in 2018, with Michael Caine, Olivia Colman, Jourdan Dunn, Naomie Harris, Joanna Lumley, and David Walliams. The two videos are part of Comic Relief's charity programme.


title: British Airways

text: The aeroplanes that British Airways inherited from the four-way merger between BOAC, BEA, Cambrian, and Northeast were temporarily given the text logo "British airways" but retained the original airline's livery. With its formation in 1974, British Airways' aeroplanes were given a new white, blue, and red colour scheme with a cropped Union Jack painted on their tail fins, designed by Negus & Negus. In 1984, a new livery designed by Landor Associates updated the airline's look as it prepared for privatization. For celebrating centenary, BA announced four retro liveries: three on Boeing 747-400 aircraft (one in each of BOAC, Negus & Negus, and Landor Associates liveries), and one A319 in BEA livery.


title: British Airways

text: In 1997, there was a controversial change to a new Project Utopia livery; all aircraft used the corporate colours consistently on the fuselage, but tailfins bore one of multiple designs. Several people spoke out against the change, including the former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who famously covered the tail of a model 747 at an event with a handkerchief, to show her displeasure. BA's traditional rival, Virgin Atlantic, took advantage of the negative press coverage by applying the Union flag to the winglets of their aircraft along with the slogan "Britain's national flagcarrier".


title: British Airways

text: In 1999, the CEO of British Airways, Bob Ayling, announced that all BA planes would adopt the tailfin design "Chatham Dockyard Union Flag" originally intended to be used only on the Concorde, based on the Union Flag. All BA aircraft have since borne the "Chatham Dockyard Union flag" variant of the Project Utopia livery, except for the four retro aircraft.


title: British Airways

text: In 2011, British Airways made a brand relaunch project, in which BA introduced a stylized, metallized version of arms by For People Design to be used along with its "Speedmarque" logo. This is used exclusively on aircraft, First Wing Lounge and advertisements.


title: British Airways

text: British Airways' tiered loyalty programme, called the Executive Club, includes access to special lounges and dedicated "fast" queues. BA also invites its top corporate accounts to join a "Premier" incentive programme. British Airways operates airside lounges for passengers travelling in premium cabins, and these are available to certain tiers of Executive Club members. First class passengers, as well as Gold Executive Club members, are entitled to use First Class Lounges. Business class passengers (called Club World or Club Europe in BA terms) as well as Silver Executive Club members may use Business lounges. At airports in which BA does not operate a departure lounge, a third party lounge is often provided for premium or status passengers. In 2011, due to the merger with Iberia, British Airways announced changes to the Executive Club to maximise integration between the airlines. This included the combination and rebranding of Air Miles, BA Miles and Iberia Plus points as the IAG operated loyalty programme Avios.


title: British Airways

text: high life Magazine is British Airways' complimentary inflight magazine. It is available to all customers across all cabins and aircraft types.


title: British Airways

text: high life shop Magazine is British Airways' inflight shopping magazine. It is available to all customers on all aircraft where the inflight shopping range can be carried.


title: British Airways

text: First life is a complimentary magazine offered to all customers travelling in the First cabin. It has a range of articles including fashion, trends and technology with an upmarket target audience.


title: British Airways

text: Business life is a complimentary magazine targeted at business travellers and frequent flyers. The magazine can be found in all short haul aircraft seat pockets, in the magazine selection for Club World customers and in lounges operated by British Airways.


title: British Airways

text: "Euro Traveller" is British Airways' economy class cabin on all short-haul flights within Europe, including domestic flights within the UK.


title: British Airways

text: Heathrow and Gatwick based flights are operated by Airbus A320 series aircraft. Standard seat pitch varies from 29" to 34" depending on aircraft type and location of the seat.


title: British Airways

text: All flights from Heathrow and Gatwick have a buy on board system with a range of food designed by Tom Kerridge.


title: British Airways

text: Food can be pre-ordered through the British Airways mobile application. Alternatively, a limited selection can be purchased on-board using credit and debit card or by using Frequent Flyer Avios points. British Airways is rolling out Wi-Fi across its fleet of aircraft with 90% expected to be Wi-Fi enabled by 2020.


title: British Airways

text: Scheduled services operated by BA Cityflyer currently offer complimentary onboard catering. The service will switch to buy on board in the future.