"The Apprentice," the controversial biographical drama film about young Donald Trump, the former U.S. president and the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, will hit U.S. and Canadian theaters in October, weeks before presidential election in November, media reported on Friday.
The hot-button film has been acquired by Briarcliff Entertainment for a pre-election release on Oct. 11, as well as an awards push, reported The Hollywood Reporter, a top American entertainment industries magazine. Briarcliff Entertainment is an indie distributor based in Santa Monica, California.
Directed by Ali Abbasi and written by Vanity Fair's longtime Trump chronicler Gabriel Sherman, the film stars Emmy nominee Sebastian Stan as Trump.
"The Apprentice," premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, examines Trump's career as a real estate businessman in New York in the 1970s and the 1980s.
The film bowed in competition at Cannes and immediately stoked controversy, according to the Los Angeles Times, the biggest newspaper on the U.S. West Coast.
After the film's unveiling, Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung blasted it as "garbage" and "pure fiction" and vowed to file a lawsuit against the filmmakers in an effort to derail its release, reported the newspaper.
Following its Cannes debut, "The Apprentice" secured distribution in Canada, Europe and parts of Asia, but the film faced uncertainty in the United States, as nervous studios, streamers and indie distributors hesitated to invite the wrath of Trump and his supporters, said the report.
After months of negotiations, though, Briarcliff stepped up and grabbed the film's domestic distribution rights, the report added.
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