The Donald Trump biopic was one of the hottest tickets at Cannes this year. So why did it take months, and a minor miracle, to sell? As the movie finally hits theaters, its screenwriter, VF special correspondent Gabriel Sherman, has some ideas.
On the night of May 20, I stood in my tuxedo inside the storied Auditorium Louis Lumière at Cannes and listened as more than 2,000 people in black tie gave an eight-minute standing ovation for the film I wrote: The Apprentice. The movie is a Frankenstein origin story about Donald Trump, played by Marvel star Sebastian Stan in heavy prosthetics and a golden toupee. It follows Trump as he rises in Manhattan real estate during the gritty 1970s and gaudy ’80s under the tutelage of right-wing lawyer turned fixer Roy Cohn, played with dead-eyed menace by Succession’s Jeremy Strong. The biggest controversy centered on a scene—spoiler alert—that depicted Trump sexually assaulting his first wife, Ivana. (There were audible gasps in the room when it played.) Other scenes showed Trump getting liposuction, undergoing scalp reduction surgery, and popping amphetamine diet pills—details reported in Harry Hurt III’s 1993 Trump biography, Lost Tycoon. (Trump denied the claims at the time.)
The premiere generated headlines worldwide. But during the after-party with views of oligarch-owned yachts anchored in the harbor, I began getting news alerts on my phone: Trump announced he planned to sue to block the movie’s release. “We will be filing a lawsuit to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said. He called the movie “malicious defamation,” “election interference by Hollywood elites,” and said it belonged “in a dumpster fire.” I felt a pit in my stomach as I scrolled the headlines. But I also felt strangely validated. Life was imitating art. Trump’s legal threat followed the first rule Cohn elucidates in the movie: Attack, attack, attack.