The Apprentice nearly disappeared over Hollywood's fear. Is that the future for political films?
CBC
Daniel Bekerman never set out to produce a political film.
That's despite the fact that The Apprentice, the movie his Toronto-based production company Scythia Films took on, is about one of the most polarizing political figures in recent memory: former U.S. president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump.
It's also despite the fact that both Bekerman and director Ali Abbasi have stated that the film is in no way a hit piece or propaganda, but instead an emotional character study aimed at those of all political stripes. (Bekerman described it as a "conversation starter, to say the least.")
Still, that's not how it's been interpreted.
The biopic that begins and ends far before its subject actually entered politics has itself become a political hot potato — one that Bekerman says is a test case on whether Hollywood has an appetite for films meant to challenge or influence audiences — or simply exist as anything beyond pure escapism.
"If you have companies, in this case the big corporate distribution system, that [are] willing to let that sort of culture of fear and intimidation govern their choices, then that's a particular kind of world to live in," he said.
"That did happen to us. And, you know, maybe we're a bit of a canary in the coal mine on that."
Though The Apprentice hit 115 theatres across Canada on Friday, its journey to the screen hasn't been straightforward.
After a cease-and-desist letter from Trump's legal team, the movie's main financier Kinematics backed out, with a statement from the company citing "creative difference."
That followed a Variety article, reporting that Kinematics-backer and Trump ally Dan Snyder first spearheaded support for the project because he was under the impression it would be a flattering depiction of the former president, before launching a campaign to re-edit the film after actually watching it.
The film was only able to make its way to a theatrical release after a truly Herculean grassroots funding campaign and a last-minute investment from indie distributor Briarcliff Entertainment.
The founder of that company, Tom Ortenberg, was also behind distribution of Michael Moore's Iraq War film Fahrenheit 9/11, the Catholic Church child-abuse drama Spotlight and Jamal Khashoggi's assassination documentary The Dissident. He also fought to release Kevin Smith's Christianity critique Dogma against protest from religious groups.
"He's the one distributor who had the balls to take it on and not be intimidated by those threats," Bekerman said of Ortenberg.
Meanwhile, Ortenberg himself told the Hollywood Reporter that virtually all studios and distributors were "running away from the picture" not because of financial or artistic concerns, but based on the industry's deeply ingrained fear of anything truly cutting.
