Maga's plot to restore Cold War era patriotism to ‘woke' Hollywood

Telegraph

3 days ago

In her 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand expounds her individualist philosophy by portraying a dystopian society in which titans of industry fight back against burdensome bureaucracy.
Though widely panned by critics, the book has remained a cult favourite of the libertarian Right. Paul Ryan, the former Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, gave out copies to staff members as Christmas presents. Donald Trump, not widely known as a reader, has named Rand as his favourite author.
It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that an adaptation of Atlas Shrugged is among a handful of projects proposed by Founders Films, a new Right-wing production company aimed at restoring patriotism to Hollywood.
The planned venture, which is being pitched to potential investors, comes amid a broader shift to the Right across the US media industry as the return of Trumpian politics triggers a war on 'woke'.
'[Founders Films] goes against everything that we know about Hollywood, which is that traditionally it is quite Left-liberal, it is quite compassionate, it is rarely associated with blood and thunder narratives,' says media analyst Alex DeGroote.
'It's a real punch in the face for woke.'
Founders Films is being launched by a handful of figures linked to the Silicon Valley data giant Palantir, including chief technology officer Shyam Sankar, early employee Ryan Podolsky and investor Christian Garrett.
The company's name is a play on Founders Fund, the tech-focused venture capital fund launched by Palantir founder Peter Thiel.
Documents seen by the US news website Semafor outline the tech executives' vision for the project, with the ethos described as: 'Say yes to projects about American exceptionalism, name America's enemies, back artists unconditionally, take risk on novel IP [intellectual property].'
In a post on Substack late last year, Sankar wrote nostalgically about all-American blockbusters of yesteryear including Red Dawn, Top Gun, Rocky IV, and The Hunt for Red October.
He argued that the US had lost the ability to leverage its film industry as soft power and called for the resurrection of the 'American Cinematic Universe' largely, it seems, by portraying Chinese communists as baddies on screen.
'Breaking out of our cultural malaise will require the studios to wake up and choose America,' he added.
Cultural warfare
In many ways, it is a rekindling of cinema as cultural warfare in a way not seen since the Cold War.
Alongside Atlas Shrugged, other slated projects include films about the evacuation of the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the assassination of Iran's Gen Qasem Soleimani, as well as The Greatest Game, a thriller spy series that 'lays bare China's plans to replace the United States as the dominant global power'.
Sankar points to examples of Chinese-ordered censorship and the fact that Disney's Mulan was filmed in Xinjiang as evidence of Beijing's growing sway over Hollywood.
'The statement is that Hollywood's been captured by a foreign adversary and there's some good evidence there,' says Dr Dominic Lees, associate professor of film-making at Reading University.
Another strain of the Founders Films philosophy is rooted in the culture wars. The new studio wants to bring an injection of unashamedly conservative thinking to an industry that has long been dominated by liberals.
'What they are taking a punt on is that there is a movie-going market for films that counter what they're calling a Left-wing agenda,' adds Lees.
It builds on growing criticism of Hollywood from the Right, with criticism levelled at studios for introducing heavy-handed progressive politics into films or removing anything deemed offensive.
Disney has found itself at the centre of this controversy, with critics blaming the House of Mouse's political leanings for a string of recent flops, including this year's live-action reboot of Snow White, starring Rachel Zegler.
Disney itself has admitted that there might be a potential 'misalignment' between the films it is making and what consumers want after splurging almost $1bn (£740m) on a string of box office failures in 2023, while boss Bob Iger has outlined plans to cut the studio's output and refocus on quality.
Meanwhile, Gina Carano, the actress who was dropped from Star Wars series The Mandalorian in 2021 over her political posts on social media, is suing Disney and Lucasfilm for wrongful termination and discrimination in a lawsuit backed by Elon Musk.
Carano was sacked for a post on Instagram that equated the persecution of Jews by the Nazis to the persecution of Republicans in the US.
Tinsel Town takeover
There are already signs that conservative ideology is gaining commercial traction in Hollywood.
Am I Racist?, a Borat-style mockumentary lampooning the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) movement, became the highest-grossing documentary of 2024 after pulling in more than $12m at the box office on a budget of just $3m. Reagan, a biopic starring Dennis Quaid as the former US president, grossed $30m last year despite scathing reviews from critics.
The streaming era has also opened up an opportunity for what once would have been niche sub-genres to break out and find their audience.
Christian cinema, for example, has made something of a resurgence at the US box office in recent years thanks to hits such as The King of Kings and The Chosen, a multi-series drama about the life of Jesus. In one week earlier this year, three of the top 10 US box office spots were faith-based titles.
Tinsel Town's rightward shift is just one part of a broader assault on the US media heralded by Trump, who earlier this year appointed Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson and Jon Voight as 'special ambassadors' to Hollywood, tasked with reversing what he deems to have been a period of decline.
Meanwhile, controversy is growing around an $8bn takeover of Hollywood giant Paramount by Skydance, the US media group run by David Ellison, which was approved this week.
Paramount's recent decision to reach a $16m settlement with Trump for a lawsuit filed against its broadcaster CBS has been widely condemned as an effort to make concessions to the president.
This disquiet was fuelled by CBS's shock decision last week to cancel The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, just days after the long-serving host branded the settlement a 'big, fat bribe'.
Trump has since poured more fuel on the fire after claiming Skydance had promised to give him $20m worth of free advertising and programming in a side deal. Democrat senators have opened an investigation into potential corruption.
The president's sway over the Paramount deal suggests he could exert pressure over the studio's output too. It is fuelling concerns about the threat to freedom of expression across the Atlantic.
DeGroote describes Trump as 'lacerating the bit of the media universe which he doesn't like', adding: 'It's a dual pincer movement. You're going after the politicians, but you're also going after the media platforms.'
Patrick Spence, the TV producer behind Mr Bates vs The Post Office and The Hack, an upcoming drama about the phone hacking scandal, says: 'It feels like we're living in a Batman movie because the villains are so cartoon-like. But the trouble is it's real. It's actually happening in front of us.'
Ultimately, however, a Right-wing takeover of Hollywood will depend on making hits. Lees casts doubt on whether the gun-toting style of propaganda film-making proposed by Founders Films will be effective.
'My sense is that these guys at the moment are not very culturally sophisticated,' Lees says. 'If they want to really make an impact it's going to be how they subvert the different existing genres.'