\n<\/p>\n
Hollywood executives love to characterize themselves as fearless. The truth is that they spend most of their time trying to minimize risk.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s why theaters are clogged with vacuous sequels. It\u2019s why so many Hollywood power players hide behind P.R. people. And it\u2019s why all of the big movie studios and streaming services \u2014 and, in fact, most indie film companies \u2014 declined to distribute \u201cThe Apprentice,<\/a>\u201d a dramatized origin story about Donald J. Trump that the former president has called \u201cmalicious defamation<\/a>\u201d and showered with cease-and-desist letters.<\/p>\n But the movie business still has at least one wildcatter: Tom Ortenberg.<\/p>\n Mr. Ortenberg, 63, and his Briarcliff Entertainment are pushing to complete a deal<\/a> to acquire \u201cThe Apprentice\u201d for wide release in theaters in the United States in September or early October \u2014 close enough to the presidential election to bask in its heat, but far enough away to avoid final-stretch media overload. Briarcliff\u2019s pursuit of the $16 million film was confirmed by five people involved with the sale process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private negotiation.<\/p>\n \u201cTom\u2019s got more courage than most people in Hollywood combined,\u201d said Stephen Galloway, the dean of Chapman University\u2019s film school. \u201cHis interest in this kind of movie involves business, of course. He sees money to be made by leveraging millions of dollars in free publicity. But part of it is wanting to do his bit. He\u2019s liberal and cares about social issues.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Hurdles remain, the people cautioned. \u201cApprentice\u201d producers cobbled together the money to make the movie from various sources. One was Kinematics, an upstart film company backed by Dan Snyder, the former Washington Commanders owner \u2014 and a Trump supporter. Kinematics, which invested about $5 million, would need to sign off on the Briarcliff deal and has balked, calling the offer subpar, according to the five people involved in the sale process. The Kinematics snag was reported earlier by a Puck newsletter.<\/p>\n So producers have put together a package to buy out Kinematics at a premium. The sides are now haggling over terms, including the timing of payment.<\/p>\n Briarcliff will need to move quickly to engineer a fall release: Marketing materials must be prepared; theaters must be booked (and some might refuse). \u201cThe Apprentice\u201d has reached distribution deals for Canada, Europe and parts of Asia. Once theaters overseas begin playing the film (sometime this fall), it will become available on global pirating sites, reducing its value to a U.S. distributor.<\/p>\n Mr. Ortenberg declined to comment. A spokeswoman for the film and its lead producers also declined to comment, as did Kinematics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Over his four-decade movie career, Mr. Ortenberg has repeatedly championed movies deemed too hot to handle by the Hollywood establishment. Not all of his bets have paid off. But some have \u2014 spectacularly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In 2004, after Disney refused to release<\/a> \u201cFahrenheit 9\/11,\u201d Michael Moore\u2019s flame-throwing documentary<\/a> about the George W. Bush administration and the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, it was Mr. Ortenberg, then president of a fledgling Lionsgate, who picked up the film. When theaters in conservative pockets of the country refused to play it, Mr. Ortenberg went on the attack.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat these chains are doing is a horrible precedent for the movie business, and it shows exactly how fragile the First Amendment is,\u201d Mr. Ortenberg told The New York Times at the time. \u201cFahrenheit 9\/11,\u201d which counted Harvey Weinstein as a producer, collected $222 million in global ticket sales, or about $368 million in today\u2019s dollars, the most ever for a documentary. The documentary cost less than $10 million to make.<\/p>\n Mr. Ortenberg\u2019s r\u00e9sum\u00e9 also includes Kevin Smith\u2019s \u201cDogma,\u201d a profane 1999 religious satire that was greeted by protests, boycotts and death threats, and Oliver Stone\u2019s \u201cW,\u201d a comedic 2008 skewering of Mr. Bush. Mr. Ortenberg was also behind \u201cSpotlight,\u201d the Oscar-winning newspaper drama from 2015 about the Roman Catholic Church\u2019s cover-up of sexual abuse by priests.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In 2020, Briarcliff distributed \u201cThe Dissident<\/a>,\u201d about the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and attempted cover-up by the Saudi government. In that case, too, Mr. Ortenberg stepped in after Hollywood companies balked at distributing it. \u201cThe Dissident\u201d was a flop in limited theatrical release, but found a modest audience on home video.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Apprentice\u201d debuted to mostly favorable reviews at the Cannes Film Festival last month and dramatizes Mr. Trump\u2019s origin story, focusing on his rise in New York real estate in the 1970s and \u201980s and mentorship by Roy Cohn, the unscrupulous power broker. Sebastian Stan, known for his role as Bucky Barnes in Marvel superhero movies, plays Mr. Trump. Jeremy Strong<\/a> portrays the pugnacious Cohn, complete with burnt-bacon tan. Mr. Strong, an Emmy winner for HBO\u2019s \u201cSuccession,\u201d recently won a Tony Award for his performance in \u201cAn Enemy of the People\u201d on Broadway.<\/p>\n Briarcliff plans to position both actors as Oscar contenders, according to the people involved with the sale.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Apprentice\u201d also stars Maria Bakalova (\u201cBorat Subsequent Moviefilm\u201d) as Ivana Trump. One incendiary scene shows Mr. Trump throwing her to the ground and assaulting her. In real life, she accused him of rape in a deposition related to their 1991 divorce<\/a>. She later disavowed the claim<\/a>, saying she did not mean rape in the \u201ccriminal sense.\u201d She died in 2022.<\/p>\n Kinematics, citing potential legal liability, pushed the film\u2019s director, Ali Abbasi, to remove or trim down the already brief scene before the Cannes premiere; Mr. Abbasi refused. Other scenes in the film depict Mr. Trump as hooked on speedlike diet pills and having fat surgically suctioned.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Last month, Mr. Trump threatened to sue to block the film\u2019s release. \u201cThis garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes lies that have long been debunked,\u201d Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, told reporters at the time.<\/p>\n A lawsuit from Mr. Trump would cause headaches for Briarcliff and the producers, but courts \u2014 citing First Amendment protections \u2014 have consistently sided with filmmakers in similar cases over the years.<\/p>\n The lead producers of \u201cThe Apprentice\u201d are Amy Baer, the founding chief executive of CBS Films and a former Sony Pictures executive, and Daniel Bekerman, a scrappy indie producer with credits like \u201cThe Witch\u201d (2015). \u201cThe Apprentice\u201d was written by Gabriel Sherman, who is known for \u201cThe Loudest Voice in the Room,\u201d a best-selling 2014 biography of Roger Ailes<\/a>, the disgraced political operative and Fox News leader.<\/p>\n Companies that passed on \u201cThe Apprentice\u201d declined to comment or did not respond to queries. They included Focus Features, Sony, Searchlight, Netflix, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Amazon\u2019s Prime Video and A24.<\/p>\n In conversations with sales agents for the film, the uninterested companies justified their stance with various explanations, according to the people involved with distribution negotiations for the movie. A couple of potential distributors thought the film was good but not good enough to risk the almost guaranteed blowback \u2014 not just from Mr. Trump\u2019s lawyers but from the broader MAGA world.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Other potential distributors worried about regulatory retribution from Mr. Trump should he be re-elected. During his first term, Mr. Trump\u2019s Justice Department tried to block AT&T\u2019s acquisition of Time Warner, which owned CNN. The move was widely seen as retaliation<\/a> for CNN coverage that angered Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n The box office prospects for \u201cThe Apprentice\u201d are unclear. Sequels have been succeeding, but original movies \u2014 dramas especially \u2014 have been struggling to break through. Politically minded films have largely moved to streaming. \u201cThe Apprentice\u201d could also fall in a chasm, with Trump supporters boycotting and liberal audiences repulsed.<\/p>\n \u201cI have a hard time seeing any red-collared American going to see it,\u201d said Mr. Galloway of Chapman University. \u201cWill others want to pay 20 bucks to consume even more Trump? Maybe. Maybe not.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n