“The Apprentice,” a film chronicling Donald Trump’s early career, is set to be released less than a month before the U.S. presidential election.
The film, which caused a stir when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, has secured theatrical distribution from Briarcliff Entertainment and will hit U.S. theaters on October 11, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The distribution company, founded by Tom Ortenberg, producer of the biographical crime drama “Spotlight,” is also reportedly planning an awards campaign around the film, in which Sebastian Stan plays the young Trump.
Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump and Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump in “The Apprentice.” Scythian Films
Stan, best known for his roles in the Marvel films, plays Trump during his rise as a New York real estate developer under the tutelage of influential lawyer and politician Roy Cohn (played by “Succession” actor Jeremy Strong).
The film was written by Vanity Fair journalist Gabriel Sherman and directed by Iranian-Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi.
The latter reached out to X following the film’s Cannes premiere to express his frustration that major studios and film distributors in the United States had apparently abandoned the project, writing: “For some reason, some influential people in your country don’t want you to see it!!!”
We have a new proposition for you. It’s not a fucking sequel or a fucking remake. It’s called #The Apprentice and for some reason some influential people in your country don’t want you to see it!!! https://t.co/EMoptrEqCP
— Ali Abbasi (@_aliabbasi_) June 3, 2024
According to the Los Angeles Times, “The Apprentice” had already secured distribution in Canada, Europe and parts of Asia by the time Briarcliff Entertainment picked it up.
The film is said to feature scenes of “rape, erectile dysfunction, baldness and betrayal.”
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said in a statement to The Associated Press on August 30 that the film’s release amounted to “election interference by Hollywood elites just before November.”
“This ‘film’ is pure malicious slander, should never see the light of day, and does not even deserve a place in the DVD section sold directly from a bargain bin at a soon-to-be-closed discount movie store, it belongs in a burning dumpster,” he said.
A cease and desist letter was also sent to the filmmakers by Trump’s legal team in May, calling the action “direct foreign interference in the American election.”
“If you do not immediately cease all distribution and marketing of this defamatory farce, we will be forced to pursue all appropriate legal remedies,” attorney David Warrington wrote in the letter, obtained by Business Insider at the time.
Dan Snyder, a billionaire Trump supporter, was one of the film’s backers and believed the biopic would be favorable to the former president.
According to sources who spoke to Variety, Snyder was furious about the film’s portrayal of Trump when he first saw a cut of the film in February.
businessinsider
