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Hot-Button Flick ‘The Apprentice’ Acquired by Briarcliff for Pre-Election Release, Awards Campaign

The Trump origin story, written by Gabriel Sherman and directed by Ali Abbasi, stars Sebastian Stan as the future president and Jeremy Strong as his consigliere Roy Cohn.

The Apprentice, Ali Abbasi ’s hot-button film about the young Donald Trump, has been acquired by Tom Ortenberg ’s Briarcliff Entertainment for a pre-election U.S. release on Oct. 11, as well as an awards push, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. The film was written by Vanity Fair ’s longtime Trump chronicler Gabriel Sherman and stars Sebastian Stan as the future president and Jeremy Strong as his one-time consigliere Roy Cohn. “What Abassi’s film reveals most of all is the extent to which the toxicity that’s now an inescapable part of our contemporary reality was shaped by the unholy alliance between two men half a century ago,” THR’ s David Rooney opined in his Cannes review of the film, which received largely positive reviews across the board and now stands at 77 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

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