EXCLUSIVE: The cease and desist letter sent by Donald Trump‘s campaign to the makers of The Apprentice might have cooled distributor interest in the former president’s coming of age tale, but now all bets are off. The filmmakers and distributor Briarcliff Entertainment are pulling out the stops to create awareness for the film — and goad Trump to see it — when it opens tomorrow on 1740 screens in 50 states both red and blue. In a stunt-y maneuver yesterday, they hired a plane to fly a banner over the crowd at Reading, Pennsylvania, right before a Trump rally. This was done prior to the former president taking the stage and whipping his faithful into a frenzy, because of air traffic restrictions. Ali Abbasi, who directed Sebastian Stan as Trump, Jeremy Strong as his mentor Roy Cohn and Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump, has also made a standing offer to screen The Apprentice for Trump, though it is not exactly a spoiler alert to imagine this lacerating depiction will keep the movie off his to do list. But hey, when you’ve got a movie that only recently firmed up its release plans in the heat of an incendiary presidential election campaign, you gotta try.
