'The Apprentice' Hits Theaters This Weekend
by EG
For Americans trying to escape from the deluge of political news surrounding the upcoming election, movie theaters won't offer much of a refuge this weekend. The new bio pic about presidential candidate Donald Trump, The Apprentice, hits theaters this week, and it remains to be seen whether the movie, which is unlikely to appeal to Trump supporters, can resonate with a wide audience. Read on for details.
The timely and improbably nuanced Donald Trump origins movie, The Apprentice, almost didn’t make it to cinemas in time for the U.S. presidential election. For much of the past year, in fact, the film appeared to be falling victim to the very same Trumpian tactics of ruthless media manipulation that it seeks to scrutinize.
The Apprentice received rave reviews and an 8-minute standing ovation after its Cannes Film Festival premiere in May. Simultaneously, though, reports emerged that the film’s principal financier, Kinematics — founded by producer Mark Rapaport, son-in-law of the billionaire and known Trump donor Dan Snyder — had objections to a pivotal scene in the movie where a young Donald rapes his then-wife Ivana Trump. Days later, Trump’s real-life lawyers filed a cease and desist letter threatening to sue the producers and any future distributors of The Apprentice.
Given the film’s content, the meta nature of the moment — art imitating life, imitating art — was lost on no one involved in the project. Written by veteran Vanity Fair reporter Gabriel Sherman and directed by rising Iranian-Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi, The Apprentice explores Donald Trump’s rise to power in 1980s New York under the influence of firebrand right-wing attorney Roy Cohn, who mentors him in the dark arts of winning constant media attention while weaponizing the U.S. legal system against any potential foe.
The powerful work from the film’s key cast — Marvel star Sebastian Stan in a riveting and career-reorienting turn as the young Donald; Succession favorite Jeremy Strong bringing his full method-actor intensity to Cohn; and Borat 2 breakout Maria Bakalova as the vivacious young Ivana — inspired a wave of Oscars speculation on the ground in Cannes. But Trump’s threats and the media frenzy surrounding Snyder’s involvement nonetheless had their intended effect: Every major U.S. distributor and streamer subsequently passed on picking up The Apprentice, according to those close to the project.
“With the stars we have and the reception we got in Cannes, it’s unheard of the way the industry has treated this film,” says Abbasi.
The only domestic distributor to step in with an offer to release The Apprentice was Tom Ortenberg’s maverick indie outfit Briarcliff Entertainment. But Kinematics held the contractual right of approval over any distribution deal, and the company balked at Ortenberg’s offer, believing it was too low and didn’t offset their concerns over the likelihood of legal challenges tied to the rape scene. After months of paralysis, the dispute eventually headed to court, where the glacial pace of legal proceedings seemed likely to tie the film up until after the election.
It was during a brief lull in these machinations that 36-year-old producer James Shani, one of the last of The Apprentice‘s 29 credited executive producers to get involved in the project, began negotiating with the Kinematics camp to buy out the company’s stake. After a stint as a talent manager at Issa Rae’s Hoorae Media, Shani had launched his own indie marketing and distribution company, Rich Spirit, on the eve of Cannes, raising a pool of capital to acquire an initial three-film slate of buzzy international titles. But instead of spreading his bets, Shani speedily reached a deal to spend his entire sum to secure the rights to The Apprentice from Kinematics. With Kinematics out, the Briarcliff deal closed, paving the way for The Apprentice’s release on 1,500 to 2,000 screens on Oct. 11.
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.