In spite of his pre-presidency fame, there have been surprisingly few attempts to tell Donald Trump’s story since he became president. There was a miniseries or two, and various Saturday Night Live impersonators, but few efforts to do something on a grander scale, at least until now. The Apprentice, which stars Sebastian Stan as Trump and Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn, has been acquired by a distributor and is set to hit theaters in the U.S. on Oct. 11, 2024, just weeks before the 2024 election.
According to reporting in Indiewire, the film, which was directed by Ali Abbasi, was acquired by Briarcliff Entertainment.
The release plan for this movie has been complicated by numerous factors, including the fact that Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder invested in the film, and then tried to block its release after he realized that the final cut does not reflect well on Trump. The Trump campaign has also threatened various legal actions against the film, in part because it contains a sequence in which Stan’s Trump rapes Trump’s first wife, Ivana.
The Apprentice follows Trump in the late 1970s and early 1980s as Roy Cohn is coaching him on his burgeoning real estate empire. Eventually, Trump learns so well from his master that he pushes Cohn out of the company completely.
While it’s unclear how wide the release for The Apprentice will be, it will certainly be unusual to have a movie with major actors released just days before a presidential election featuring the subject of the film. Will it swing Pennsylvania? Probably not, but you never know.
