PalmStar Media Capital is a film financing company based in Philadelphia. It was founded by its CEO, Kevin Frakes in 2010.
PalmStar Entertainment was co-founded in 2004 by Kevin Frakes and Stephan Paternot. In 2010, Frakes co-founded PalmStar Media Capital with Peggy Taylor[1] and Frank Pollifrone to focus on financing films.[2] In July 2017, PalmStar Media purchased all the assets of National Lampoon, Inc., including trademark and library of print, audio, movie, and video content.[3]
In 2014, PalmStar filed a breach of contract lawsuit against Zero Gravity Management over the casting of Ben Affleck in The Accountant, alleging that it shut PalmStar out of the production against a co-production agreement.[4] [5]
In 2016, PalmStar purchased the film rights of the Paulo Coelho novel The Alchemist for $6.5 million.[6] Initially, shooting was to begin in September 2021,[7] but in July 2021, The Hollywood Reporter announced that the movie adaptation had fallen apart.[8] Legendary Entertainment has acquired the TV, film and ancillary rights to the novel in October 2023 and intends to develop the film with Sony and PalmStar.[9]
In October 2014, PalmStar signed on a multi-year financing deal with Basil Iwanyk's Thunder Road Pictures, and according to this agreement, Thunder Road would get $200 million funds from PalmStar.[10] Thunder Road would use it to fully finance and produce five to six independent films from $20 to $50 million budget range per year.
In February 2015, PalmStar signed on a deal with Dylan Sellers' Rivers Edge Films to handle all company's production and development costs, and together, PalmStar would finance four to five films for Rivers Edge with budgets between $20 million to $40 million.[11] In August 2015, PalmStar signed a deal with Jeremy Renner and Don Handfield's production company The Combine to finance two to three films per year.[12]
PalmStar has also partnered with Anthony Bregman's Likely Story and Buddy Patrick's Windy Hill Pictures.