Founders Films, a new Dallas-based production company backed by executives at software firm Palantir, is seeking investors to help fund its proposed film and TV projects, including a three-part Ayn Rand adaptation and a movie about America and Israel’s recent attacks on Iran.
Investor Christian Garrett, Palantir chief technology officer Shyam Sankar and early Palantir employee Ryan Podolsky are behind the fundraising push. In a pitch deck first reported by Semafor, Founders Films proclaims that, with the proper funding, they would “say yes to projects about American exceptionalism, name America’s enemies, back artists unconditionally [and] take risk on novel IP.”
“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 production company’s deck argues.
The company’s proposed slate of projects includes “102 Minutes,” a feature film about the evacuation of the World Trade Center on 9/11 that would celebrate American “courage”; a three-part adaptation of right-wing icon Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel “Atlas Shrugged”; a film about the 2020 assassination of Iranian military officer Qasem Soleimani; and “Operation: Pineapple Express,” a movie about America’s “botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.”
The deck also pitches “The Greatest Game,” a proposed “multi-season, global spy thriller that lays bare China’s plans to replace the United States as the dominant global power.” The project slate includes films celebrating both American and Israeli military might as well, like “Roaring Lion,” which would focus on the two countries’ recent attacks on Iran and depict Israel as “striving for nuclear non-proliferation and exercising its right of self-defense”; and “When the Towers Fall,” a film about Israel’s 2024 pager attack against Hezbollah.
In its pitch deck, Founders Films also expressed its intention to produce unscripted documentaries about figures like Elon Musk, Admiral Hyman Rickover and Oculus founder Palmer Luckey. In addition to producing its own films and TV shows, the company would reportedly seek to engage in co-financing projects with other studios, distributing films itself and building its own brand partnerships as well.
Founders Films and its proposed project slate come at a time when conservatives are making intentional efforts to try to break into the traditionally left-leaning world of the entertainment industry. Those efforts have resulted in varying degrees of success up to this point. But in a December 2024 post on his Substack, Palantir CTO and Founders Films backer Sankar outlined why he believes it is important for Hollywood to begin producing proudly American films like “Red Dawn,” “Top Gun,” “Rocky IV” and “The Hunt for Red October” again.
“These movies were the pump-up material of Peak America. They were awesome, and they instilled a healthy aversion to ushanka-wearing commies,” he wrote, arguing that said films formed what he called “the American Cinematic Universe.”
“America’s biggest ‘culture base’ is obviously Hollywood. The big studios are struggling in the wake of COVID and the streaming revolution, but America is still a heavyweight at the global box office,” Sankar’s post continued. “That’s power. Whenever people go to the theater to watch a movie, anywhere in the world, it’s likely an American movie.”
“Breaking out of our cultural malaise will require the studios to wake up and choose America. But it will also require a new crop of artists who are disenchanted with the status quo and who can re-enchant audiences with new, well-told stories,” he added.
“Something like this happened in the ‘70s, when upstart filmmakers like [John] Milius, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg burst onto the scene. The film industry had fallen into a cynical, downbeat rut in the era of Watergate and Vietnam Syndrome,” the Palantir CTO wrote. “The upstarts made it fun to go to the movies again. They brought back heroes, villains and romance. They rekindled the flame of the American Cinematic Universe.”
If Founders Films receives the funds that it requires to get going, then it will join Ben Shapiro’s The Daily Wire and a few other right-leaning media bases as a noteworthy producer of conservative films and TV shows. Whether or not any of its projects would actually land with audiences is another question entirely.
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