“The Apprentice,” a film dramatizing Donald Trump’s early career, is set to be released less than a month before the US presidential election.
The movie, which set tongues wagging when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, has secured theatrical distribution by Briarcliff Entertainment and will hit theaters in the US on October 11, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The distribution company — founded by Tom Ortenberg, a producer on the biographical crime drama “Spotlight” — is also reportedly planning an awards campaign around the movie, which stars Sebastian Stan as a young Trump.
Scythia Films
Stan, who is best known for his roles in Marvel movies, portrays Trump during his rise as a New York real-estate developer under the tutelage of the influential lawyer and political fixer 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 took to X in the wake of the film’s Cannes debut to vent his frustration over the fact that major studios and film distributors in the US had seemingly passed on the project, writing: “For some reason certain power people in your country don’t want you to see it!!!”
We have a new proposition for you. Its not a fucking sequel nor is it a fucking remake. Its called #The_Apprentice and for some reason certain power 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 took it on.
The film is said to feature scenes of “rape, erectile dysfunction, baldness and betrayal.”
Steven Cheung, a spokesperson 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 right before November.”
“This ‘film’ is pure malicious defamation, should never see the light of day, and doesn’t even deserve a place in the straight-to-DVD section of a bargain bin at a soon-to-be-closed discount movie store, it belongs in a dumpster fire,” he said.
A cease-and-desist letter was also sent to the filmmakers by Trump’s legal team in May, calling it “direct foreign interference in America’s elections.”
“If you do not immediately cease and desist all distribution and marketing of this libelous farce, we will be forced to pursue all appropriate legal remedies,” lawyer David Warrington wrote in the letter, which was obtained by Business Insider at the time.
Billionaire Trump supporter Dan Snyder was one of the film’s financial backers and believed the biopic would be favorable to the former president.
According to sources who spoke to Variety, Snyder was livid at the film’s depiction of Trump when he saw a cut of the movie for the first time in February.