Cannes 2024: ‘The Apprentice’ director Ali Abbasi “happy to meet” Donald Trump
Ali Abbasi, the director of the new Donald Trump biopic, The Apprentice, has said he would like to show the movie to the former President amid a threat of a lawsuit over a controversial scene in the movie.
The film, which premiered at Cannes Film Festival, uses the politician’s early years as a real estate developer in New York, with the focus being on his relationships with his first wife, Ivana Trump, and the lawyer and political fixer Roy Cohn, played by Succession star Jeremy Strong.
Controversially, the film includes a scene that shows Trump rape Ivana at their Trump Tower apartment. The decision to include it in the movie is due to Ivana making the accusation in 1990, however, she later retracted the allegation.
With this in mind, Steven Cheung, the chief spokesperson of Trump’s campaign, said, “We will be filing a lawsuit to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers. This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes lies that have been long debunked.”
Cheung also compared Abbasi’s film to “the illegal Biden Trials” by calling it “election interference by Hollywood elites, who know that President Trump will retake the White House and beat their candidate of choice because nothing they have done has worked.”
While the movie has secured a distribution deal in numerous territories, such as the UK and Ireland, there is still no agreement for the film to have an American release. The pending lawsuit could also deter distributors from taking on The Apprentice.
However, Abbasi feels Trump needs to watch the movie before making his mind up on the matter, stating at a press conference in Cannes, “I don’t think it is a movie he would dislike. I don’t necessarily think he would like it, but I think he’d be surprised. So I’m happy to meet him, have a screening and then we can discuss it afterwards.”
Furthermore, Abbasi also stressed to those in attendance: “Remember that these are human beings. The most despicable monster – the most reprehensible person in history – also liked a dog or fell in love with someone or was nice to somebody at some point. So if there’s an ideology to the film it’s a humanistic ideology.”
Speaking about a possible release date in the US, Abbasi said: “We have a promotional event called the US elections that we are hoping is going to help our movie. If I’m right, the second debate is going to be in October. So that would be a good release date for us.”
When The Apprentice premiered on May 20th at Cannes, it received an eight-minute standing ovation from the audience and Abbasi declared after the screening that “it’s time to make movies political again,” which was met with a raucous reaction.
Never Miss A Scene
The Far Out Film Newsletter
All the latest film news from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.