Rightwing forces in the U.S. have long coveted a key fixture of American liberalism’s soft power: Hollywood. The “dream factory” that deeply influences the ways Americans see themselves and the world around them has often been accused of (perhaps rightfully so) having a liberal bent. Now, it appears that a group with ties to America’s military-industrial complex has a plan to take over Tinseltown and mold it in their own image.
Semafor writes that a new production company with ties to a current and former executive at Peter Thiel’s creepy defense contractor Palantir has its sights set on transforming the entertainment industry into a bastion of neo-conservatism. Founders Films (which sounds a lot like Thiel’s Founders Fund, don’t you think?) wants to “co-finance projects, distribute films, and engage in brand partnerships,” Semafor writes. The company wants to produce projects that “celebrate American military action, push for confrontation with China, and elevate heroes of the right from Rand to Elon Musk,” the outlet notes.
Key figures raising money for the firm include Palantir chief technology officer Shyam Sankar, Christian Garrett (whose firm has invested with companies belonging to several MAGA figures, including Palantir, Musk’s SpaceX, and Palmer Luckey’s Anduril), and Ryan Podolsky, an early employee at Palantir, Semafor writes.
The outlet cites a pitch deck for the new production company that gives a good snapshot of what the firm is envisioning for Hollywood’s rightwing glow-up. “The American Brand is broken. Hollywood is AWOL. Movies have become more ideological, more cautious, and less entertaining. Large segments of American and international viewers are underserved. Production costs have soared and sales are flagging,” the deck reportedly reads. The company has also said of its brand: “Say yes to projects about American exceptionalism, name America’s enemies, back artists unconditionally, take risk on novel IP.”
Semafor further notes that the company appears to have an interest in telling stories that extol the virtues of America’s “special friend” in the Middle East, Israel:
The company brands itself as explicitly pro-American, but many of the projects also celebrate Israel. Founders’ proposed film slate also includes Roaring Lion, a movie about the recent attack against Iran, which depicts Israel as “striving for nuclear non-proliferation and exercising its right of self-defense against a crazed regime intent on destroying it.”
Gizmodo did not find a public contact for Founder’s Films, but reached out to Palantir for comment. We will update this story when we hear back.
Rightwing forces have long sought to demonize “liberal” Hollywood, most recently by making the industry seem like a QAnon-style cabal of wealthy pedophiles. That said, the perception that Hollywood is a predominantly “liberal” town is a fairly shallow one. It’s worth noting that the industry has gone through many different eras, and that each of those eras was defined by a variety of political influences and postures. It would also be difficult to suggest that Hollywood has never made any nationalistic films or ones that are sympathetic to Israel. Early aughts Hollywood is littered with godawful pieces of filmmaking that reveled in Bush-era nationalism and brain-dead warmongering. In short, it’s not like every movie that has come out since 1903 is The Battle of Algiers.
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