The “Apprentice” filmmakers have been chronicling their fight to find a distributor for the upcoming Donald Trump biopic since it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, which the film’s eventual buyer attributed to fear.
“I can’t really speak for others, but my sense is it is in large if not complete part cowardice in the face of Donald Trump,” Tom Ortenberg, whose Briarcliff Entertainment ultimately saved the project, told Entertainment Weekly in an expansive interview Friday with the cast and crew.
“Anybody who claims otherwise, I would probably accuse of fibbing,” Ortenberg continued.
The film follows Trump (Sebastian Stan) and his lawyer, infamous right-wing political fixer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), during his rise as a real estate mogul in 1980s New York City.
Chief Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung threatened legal action after the Cannes premiere to block the “garbage” film from being released ahead of November, claiming it served as “election interference by Hollywood elites.”
Its creators aren’t scared of being sued.
“Trump threatens to sue the mailman, so I’m not surprised,” screenwriter and journalist Gabriel Sherman told EW. “He’s basically just doing what Roy Cohn told him to do — he’s attacking. … I know how rigorously researched and solid the movie is, so I’m not worried.”
Even one of the film’s own investors, former Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder, reportedly attempted to block its release — after he realized at a February screening that it wasn’t, as he’d believed, a flattering portrayal of Trump.
Scott A Garfitt/Invision/Associated Press
“I remember having conversations with everybody at the beginning of the summer that this movie’s not going to come out,” Strong told EW, adding: “And the possibility of that level of, ultimately, censorship in this country, in this moment, felt like a dangerous harbinger.”
While director Ali Abbasi said the sudden disinterest after his glowing Cannes premiere “was pretty shocking,” he understands wavering buyers “not wanting to have trouble.”
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Ortenberg, meanwhile, said he still can’t fathom that this is the same industry he joined 40 years ago, and lamented how quickly the artistic and business communities in Hollywood seemed ready to appease Trump.
“That really gets to the heart of the matter, which is, when you bend the knee in advance to the authoritarian, you are only increasing the likelihood of that authoritarianism,” he added. “So to watch Hollywood in unison bend the knee to Trump, I find particularly disturbing.”
“The Apprentice” hits theaters nationwide on Oct. 11.