The controversial movie Clint Eastwood refused to direct: “They had to assess the business risk”
Many superlatives have been tossed in the direction of Clint Eastwood throughout a legendary career that’s spanned 70 years, but “controversial” rarely tends to be one of them.
That’s not to say the four-time Academy Award winner has breezed through the last seven decades without ruffling any feathers, but relative to the number of movies he’s made on either side of the camera, only a very small percentage of them have incited outrage.
Dirty Harry is one of the most notable examples, with Eastwood’s iconic renegade police officer heavily criticised in the wake of its 1971 release for glamorising violence and vigilantism, even if the leading man brushed off accusations that the character was portrayed as a role model, insisting Harry Callahan was always an antihero and not an aspirational figure.
Eastwood is as economical and efficient as he is prolific, and the majority of his pictures aren’t designed to seize headlines for their incendiary or inflammatory content. However, he did have the opportunity to helm a biographical drama that was plastered all over the news for a variety of reasons, only to decline.
Away from the silver screen, Eastwood’s political leanings are well known. His embarrassing appearance at the 2012 Republican National Convention, where he gave a speech to an empty chair, became the stuff of cringe-worthy legend, while his support of Donald Trump made him an unexpected enemy in Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea.
Naturally, when the producers of a Trump biopic focusing on his early years long before he entered politics were on the hunt for a high-profile director, Eastwood was near the top of the list. It would have been a very different film if he’d been the one wielding the megaphone, and it’s probably for the best that Ali Abbasi directed The Apprentice instead.
Speaking to Le Figaro, the filmmaker admitted the producers “were having a difficult time finding the right director who would risk his career” on tackling Trump’s relationship with Roy Cohn and how completely altered the trajectory of his personal and professional lives. “Paul Thomas Anderson said no,” Abbasi revealed. “Clint Eastwood as well. They had to assess the business risk.”
Unsurprisingly, Trump came out all guns blazing to attack The Apprentice, brandishing Abbasi’s biopic as “a cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job,” one that was made by, in his words, “human scum.” Critics disagreed, giving the film an enthusiastic reception, and there’s a hint of irony that Eastwood may well have avoided being shut out of potentially his last Oscars race had he agreed to take the job.
Whereas his Juror No 2 was heralded as a potential dark horse candidate, the legal drama that could be the legend’s final feature was completely overlooked by the Academy Awards. On the other hand, for their respective performances as Trump and Cohn in The Apprentice, Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong earned nominations for ‘Best Actor’ and ‘Best Supporting Actor’.
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