The director of “The Apprentice,” Ali Abbasi, has reacted to the threat of legal action from the Trump campaign regarding the film, which had its world premiere on Monday at the Cannes Film Festival.
“Everyone speaks about how much he sues people, but they don’t discuss how successful he is, you know?Abbasi stated. “I don’t necessarily think that this is a movie he would dislike,” he said, offering to meet with Trump and see the film for him.
“I don’t necessarily think he would like it,” Abbasi went on. You know, I think he would be shocked. And as I’ve previously stated, if that would be of interest to anyone at the Trump campaign, I would agree to go meet him anywhere he wants and discuss the movie’s background, provide a screening, and have a conversation afterwards.
Trump’s 2024 campaign released a long statement on Monday night, denouncing the movie as “pure fiction” and “garbage.”
The main spokesman for the Trump campaign, Steven Cheung, told Variety that “we will be filing a lawsuit to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers.” This rubbish is purely fictional and sensationalises long-debunked claims. Hollywood elites are meddling in the election, just as they did with the unlawful Biden trials. They know that President Trump will win and recapture the White House, defeating their preferred candidate, because nothing they have tried has worked.
When asked when the movie, which does not yet have a U.S. distributor, might be released, Abbasi responded, “We have a promotional event called U.S. Election is going to be beneficial to the film. That would be a good release date, in my opinion, considering the second debate is scheduled for September 15 or something similar.
In Ali Abbasi’s film, Stan plays the real estate mogul who becomes president, while Jeremy Strong plays his mentor and attorney, Roy Cohn. “The Apprentice” doesn’t hesitate to portray Trump in a negative light, even showing him raping Ivana, his first wife.
Abbasi gave a passionate remark during “The Apprentice’s” eight-minute standing ovation at its Monday night Cannes premiere. The director declared, “There is no nice metaphorical way to deal with fascism.” “Movies need to become more timely. It’s time to resume making political films.
Strong sent along a note that Abbasi read aloud at the press conference, even though he was not there for the premiere or press conference because he was playing in Broadway’s “An Enemy of the People.”
Strong noted that Stalin, Mao, Goebbels, and most recently, Donald Trump, have all used the term “an enemy of the people” to disparage the free press and refer to CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS News, and the New York Times as “fake news media.” “The truth remains unsettled in the world in which we live. In many respects, that assault on truth began [with Trump’s] training under Roy Cohn. Cohn was described by the National Law Journal as an attack specialist. The long, dark shadow of Roy Cohn is being felt; he left behind a history of deceit, brazen denial, manipulation, and a flagrant contempt for the truth.
A billionaire investor in the film, who believed it would be a more flattering portrayal, assembled a legal team to try and have “The Apprentice” recut even before it debuted, igniting intense controversy around the film.
