Director Ali Abbasi risked his career to direct the upcoming biopic about former U.S. President Donald Trump called The Apprentice. The Holy Spider director has already worked with sensitive topics based on real-life events, so The Apprentice seemed right up his alley, but other directors and distributors were not willing to take the risk. Abbasi has been vocal about his struggle to make the film and score a distributor, encountering networks like ABC and CBS that refuse to air the movie in TV spots. As the 2024 election grows closer, new details about the tough production are being revealed.
Tackling the story of presidential candidate Trump is a risk that many directors were not willing to take in today’s political climate, as Abbasi told Le Figaro. The director said that other famous directors such as Paul Thomas Anderson and Clint Eastwood passed on the opportunity to direct the controversial story of the rise of the businessman turned politician.
“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.” – Ali Abbasi via
Le Figaro
PTA, director of Punch-Drunk Love and Licorice Pizza, decided the biopic project was not for him for reasons upon which we can only speculate. He is set to release his next film in August 2025, so scheduling conflicts could have played a role in his decision not to direct The Apprentice. Eastwood, on the other hand, is known for his somewhat conservative political views, which leaves fans wondering if his beliefs caused him to decline the job. No one can say for sure what dissuaded these well-known directors from taking the historical project, but audiences can be sure that Abbasi was the right man for the job.
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The Rocky Road to Distribution
Although Abbasi has been outspoken about his enthusiasm for the politicized story, the general public has been weary of the portrayal of the past president. The biopic is surrounded by so much controversy that even actors Sebastian Stan, playing a young Trump, and Jeremy Strong, playing his shady mentor, have come out to defend their choice to play these sometimes unsavory characters.
Writer Gabriel Sherman had a hard time getting a director on board; Sherman wrote the script for The Apprentice six years ago and it took him a couple of years to find a director that would take on the challenge.
However, the issues did not stop once Abbasi joined the project. Nearly every major Hollywood studio declined to distribute the film, including Warner Bros, Paramount, Universal, Searchlight, Sony Pictures Classics, Focus, A24, HBO, and Lionsgate. Even streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon, Disney+, and Apple turned it down. Briarcliff Entertainment, an independent American film producer and distributor founded by former CEO of Open Road Films Tom Ortenberg, stepped up and took on the risk of distributing the film before the 2024 U.S. election.
The Apprentice
is now playing in select theaters across the U.S.