Inside the battle to release controversial Trump movie ‘The Apprentice’
After most studios balked at the idea of releasing Ali Abassi’s “The Apprentice” — the Cannes-premiered Donald Trump movie — it is finally close to being bought by Briarcliff Entertainment. A fall U.S. release will be set up for it (via The Dish).
Abassi has been quite vocal about how no studio wanted to touch his film, he even went on social media to vent his frustrations and retweeted a Matt Belloni X post that said, “Remember when Hollywood wasn’t filled with total wusses?”
Just to recap, the big four streamers (Netflix, Amazon, Disney+ and Apple) all passed on “The Apprentice.” So did Neon, Searchlight, Sony Pictures Classics, Focus, A24, HBO and Lionsgate. They were all a firm NO.
I thought maybe Vertical or Ketchup would be interested in purchasing the film, and definitely didn’t expect Briarcliffe to be in the running. “The Apprentice” cost $20M to produce, so the film’s producers wanted some, if not all, of the costs to be covered if any sell were to happen. I’m sure, when all is said and done, they will have lost money on this one.
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