Trump biopic that shows him assaulting first wife will be released in US before election
A controversial film depicting former President Donald Trump as persona non grata during his early career as a New York real estate mogul has won a U.S. distribution deal to hit theaters this fall.
“The Apprentice” — which shares the same title as the former president’s reality TV show — debuted at the 77th Cannes Film Festival in May. As the film’s producers sought to distribute it in the U.S., lawyers representing the former president threatened to sue to block the biography’s release in a cease-and-desist letter. But now, NBC News reports that the film will hit theaters in the U.S. on October 11 — just weeks before the 2024 election.
In an official statement, Trump campaign spokesman Stephen Cheung said the biography was “pure malicious smear” and hinted at possible legal action against the producers of “The Apprentice.”
“We will be taking legal action to address the patently false allegations made by these fake directors,” Cheung said. “This nonsense is pure fiction promoting lies that have long been debunked.”
The source of the controversy surrounding the film is a particular scene in which a young Trump is shown sexually assaulting his first wife, Ivana, in 1990. The scene stems from an allegation she made during divorce proceedings that Trump had raped her. She later recanted that statement in 2015, instead saying she felt violated more generally during their marriage. She died in 2022 and was buried at Trump Golf Course in Bedminster, New Jersey.
After receiving the initial cease-and-desist letter, the film’s producers insisted that “the film is a fair and balanced portrait of the former president” and that they wanted audiences to “see it and then decide” for themselves. Cheung insisted that “The Apprentice” deserved to be “thrown into the landfill” and “doesn’t even deserve a spot in the DVD section of a soon-to-be-closed discount movie store.”
Sebastian Stan has been cast as the younger Trump, and Jeremy Strong (who played Kendall Roy on HBO’s award-winning series “Succession”) plays Trump’s loyal, mob-connected adviser Roy Cohn. The script was written by Vanity Fair correspondent Gabriel Sherman, who has covered the Trump administration for the outlet. The film was directed by Iranian-Danish filmmaker Adi Abbasi.
Abbasi previously dismissed the threat of litigation, noting that while Trump’s reputation as a trial lawyer is well-known, his “success rate” is relatively low. He added that “The Apprentice” could also be fun for the former president, and that he doesn’t “necessarily think it’s a movie that [Trump] won’t like.”
One of the film’s biggest backers was conservative billionaire Dan Snyder, who was under the impression that the biopic would be a companion piece to the former president’s former life as a real estate investor. But after the film was released in February, he was reportedly “outraged” by the way Trump was portrayed.
In addition to the controversial scene that prompted the cease-and-desist letter, the film also features several unflattering depictions of the former president. Trump is shown making deals with the mob to build his own skyscrapers, taking amphetamines to lose weight, and undergoing liposuction and plastic surgery.