The trailer for Ali Abbasi’s film about Trump’s rise in the real estate business hits you with the chaos of building an empire.
Briarcliff Entertainment has released the trailer Ali Abbasi’s upcoming controversial film The Apprentice, which details Donald Trump’s rise in the real-estate business. Briarcliff has scheduled the film to be released weeks before the U.S. Presidential Election on October 11. Additionally, the studio plans to give the movie an awards push. Movies about New York business are predominantly cutthroat and this one is no exception as it quick-cuts through a montage of chaos as Sebastian Stan as Trump builds his real estate empire with Jeremy Strong’s Roy Cohn guiding him along the way.
The Apprentice‘s story will follow the era of Trump’s life from his twenties through his late thirties. It will “examine his efforts to build his real estate business in New York over the course of the ’70s and ’80s, also digging into his relationship with infamous attorney Roy Cohn.” The film description also adds that the project is “billed as an exploration of power and ambition set in a world of corruption and deceit. It’s a mentor-protege story that charts the origins of an American dynasty.” Alongside Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong, Borat 2 and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3‘s Maria Bakalova also signed on to play Ivana Trump.
The project was penned by long-time Vanity Fair Donald Trump chronicler Gabriel Sherman, whose book The Loudest Voice in the Room inspired the Showtime series starring Russell Crowe as Roger Ailes. It is said that in the time before its wide release, the film is being planned to screen at some fall film festivals and it will be receiving a full-on awards campaign, which Ortenberg has been successful in with past projects like Crash and Spotlight.
Our EIC Chris Bumbray would get to see the film at a screening at TIFF and he said in his review, “More than anything, this movie is about how men like Trump are formed and somewhat cautionary about how the desire for power breeds ruthlessness. Again, I don’t think Trump himself would dislike much about this—save for the way it depicts the unravelling of his relationship with Ivana. It is a thoroughly entertaining film with a broader appeal than you might think, even if some are positioning it with their own agendas as something it is not.”