Part of me is like,Sue us, says theApprenticedirector.
The other part is like,This can ruin my life.
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Part of me is laughing, like,Bring it on.
The other part of me is like,Wait a second, this can actually ruin my life.
(In a sworn divorce deposition from 1990, Ivana alleges Trump raped her.
Under pressure, she laterrecantedher statement during his first presidential run, and she died in 2022.)
All of which has combined to putThe Apprenticein a kind of cultural purgatory.
(It pulled in $407,486 on a goal of $100,000.)
This movie is not a political attack on anyone.
Having covered the presidential campaign in depth, Sherman had become fascinated with the Cohn-Trump relationship.
It just came to me in a flash, Sherman says.
Thats a movie: the origin.
How Roy imparted his wisdom of the dark arts to Donald.
Independently financed films move from conception to completion at their own ineluctable speed.
I was like,Okay, humanistically, this is great.
But Im not sure politically.
This is almost too ambivalent, the director recalls.
But over the course of negotiations, he revised his view.
Which would probably look down on them for doing this for many reasons.
So I was like,This is actually quite good.
After Trump lost in 2020,The Apprenticecame close to landing independent backers and seemed poised to move forward.
But the former presidents obeisance to Cohns Rule No.
3 claim victory, never admit defeat dealt the project a setback.
Stan personally contacted the director about playing Trump.
By then, the filmmakers had crystal-clear ideas of what they did anddidntwant for the role.
We were very mindful about never wanting this to be caricature-ish, says Baer.
There were so many spoofs and comic versions of Trump.
Adds Abbasi, Sebastian has this uncanny ability.
He is almost specialized in getting douchebags to feel likable.
But you feel them flesh and blood.
Snyder also contributed$1.1 millionto Trumps inaugural presidential committee and$100,000to his 2020 reelection campaign.
The sequence later transitioned to rough but consensual sex in a bedroom.
Sherman declined to comment on the matter.
Contrary to publishedreports, sources close to the production say Snyder did not attempt to blockThe Apprenticehimself.
But Kinematics executives Rapaport and Manny Nunez demanded changes; specifically, the rape sequence had to go.
People talk about the 12-minute standing ovation.
But Ali actually interrupted it and started to make his speech.
So I dont know, it might have been 20 minutes if he hadnt stopped it!
And then we saw online that Trumps campaign is calling us fake filmmakers.
Netflix, Amazon, and Apple quickly passed.
Studios including Neon and A24 kicked the projects tires but didnt make a deal.
According to a source close to the production, Sony Pictures Classics said the film wasnt for them.
Another source privy to negotiations in Cannes tells me potential distributors admitted feeling gun-shy about buying a lawsuit.
From the Trump campaign side, they were quite deliberate, Abbasi says.
They knew what they were doing.
They were actually trying to ruin it for us.
Ahead of Cannes, he helped finance postproduction costs forThe Apprentices sound editing and VFX.
Then after Cannes, Benenson stepped in to begin facilitating a financial exit from the Kinematics deal.
yo post about it on socials.
As veteran analystDavid A.
My big worry is we get buried in this legal avalanche, says Abbasi.
The guy has I dont know how many lawyers on his payroll.
They gotta do something for him.
They gotta sue someone.
