Ali Abbasi’s “The Apprentice,” recently acquired by Briarcliff Entertainment, is being released on October 11. The film will also be getting an awards push. The Donald Trump “origin story” premiered at Cannes in May where it was met with, mostly, positive reviews, but it’s been a long and arduous journey for this controversial film.
Six years ago, Gabriel Sherman wrote the screenplay and started shopping it around. A few years later, Ali Abassi (“Holy Spider”) signed on to direct the film. However, it turns out that the gig had been offered to many filmmakers before Abassi showed up in the picture.
According to Abassi, some major filmmaking heavyweights were sent the ‘Apprentice’ script, and all of them declined — two of those names were Clint Eastwood and Paul Thomas Anderson (via Le Figaro):
The producers of “The Apprentice” were having a difficult time finding the right director who would risk his career. Paul Thomas Anderson said no. Clint Eastwood as well […] they had to assess the business risk.
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Why would they even offer Eastwood to direct? Don’t they know that he leans more right than left? As for PTA, why in the world would he want to hop onboard this film?
At Cannes, I asked “Is there actually an audience for “The Apprentice”? Sure, there will be some curiosity seekers, but being inundated with 24/7 wall-to-wall news coverage of Trump, every day and all day, these last 8 years has numbed people to no ends. The last thing audiences want is to pay $20 to watch more of that.
It’s not just directors. Almost every Hollywood studio has declined to distribute “The Apprentice,” including the big four streamers (Netflix, Amazon, Disney+ and Apple), Warner Bros, Paramount, Universal, Searchlight, Sony Pictures Classics, Focus, A24, HBO and Lionsgate.
The end result is that Briarcliffe, which is headed by former Lionsgate President of Theatrical Tom Ortenberg, was the only viable option for the film. We’ll see if their gamble pays off as “The Apprentice” is released in just three day’s time.
Paul Greengrass’ "The Uprising," starring Andrew Garfield, opened to $3.2M from 2,068 theaters this weekend. Yikes. The budget hasn’t been disclosed, but is said to be in the $20-$30M range.