‘The Apprentice’ Distributor Tom Ortenberg On Pic’s Prospects After Soft Opening: Late Weekend Trajectory, Donald Trump’s “Human Scum” Attacks Could Fuel Long Run Until Elections
EXCLUSIVE: Nobody relishes being insulted the way that the makers of The Apprentice were in a late-night Trumpian tirade on Truth Social, but the man charged with distributing the Donald Trump-Roy Cohn coming-of age-drama hopes that the Republican Presidential candidate’s tweeting finger is just getting warmed up.
While some press assailed the $1.6 million opening weekend of the film on 1,740 screens, Briarcliff Entertainment chief Tom Ortenberg vowed no one involved in the film is working on a concession speech. The truth about the film won’t be known until the next Presidential election is decided in three weeks.
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“Former President Trump engaging with the film can only help us,” Ortenberg told Deadline. “We had limited time to mount a nationwide release and campaign, overcoming obstacles such as the Trump campaign’s cease and desist that led all corporate Hollywood to run away from the movie like their hair was on fire. Now we’re out there and people like the movie, very much. Exit polling is not exactly the best science, but what doesn’t lie is box office trajectory, real numbers. Hard data doesn’t lie. And we had easily the best Friday, Saturday, Sunday trajectory of any of the other opening movies, which tells us that the movie is connecting.”
Considering the weekend was dominated by the third outing of the murderous clown in Terrifier 3, leaving several festival favorites – Saturday Night and Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story were as lauded as The Apprentice – generally disheartening to the specialty picture community. Ortenberg said as far as the campaign on The Apprentice, there will be no let-up in the grassroots marketing campaign. A big part of the pic’s challenge was it took so long to extricate part-financier Kinematics, and there wasn’t time or a lot of money to mount a traditional P&A spend including TV spots.
“So we knew that we didn’t have the financial resources or the time to reach into the hinterlands into what some might consider flyover country,” he said. “We also were on a bit of a time crunch and we wanted to get the movie out as quickly and as broadly as possible. And we had a lot of sellouts over the weekend; where the picture is doing well, it’s doing really well and picking up steam where we opened up softer than we would have liked. We still had a good trajectory and we will look to stabilize and contribute to our box office total, but we’re right where we need to be.”
As for Trump’s do-you-kiss-your-mother-with-that-mouth comments like calling the filmmakers “human scum” among other salty language probably not befitting a presidential candidate, Ortenberg hopes more salvos will be forthcoming. Director Ali Abbasi has since Cannes been offering to set a screening for the MAGA man, but it is unclear whether or not Trump has seen the picture. Ortenberg, who has set private screenings for pols in DC and other cities, said that many others have viewed the picture.
“I don’t know if he saw it, but we know that a lot of his people saw it because they told a lot of people that we were in touch with that they were going to see it,” Ortenberg said. “And so our guess is that his middle of the night tweetstorm about the movie was inspired by those near him seeing it. We know people on both sides of the aisle have seen it.
“It’s still a minor miracle that we’ve gotten this far,” he said. “Six weeks ago, we didn’t know if we would have a theatrical release or if the movie would be buried forever. Literally six weeks ago, we did not know if we would even be able to release this picture. Not just theatrically, but at all. So we think that we’re in really good shape. The talent is continuing to work hard, promoting the film overseas. The movie is now certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and the critical reaction is now undeniable. The consumer reaction by word of mouth and trajectory of our grosses is undeniable. We are firmly ensconced as a serious awards contender. You can see the social media reaction to the former president’s social media postings that there is a ton of engagement from both sides of the aisle about it. So we’re still bullish.”
Ortenberg said he expects to hold most of the screens next weekend.
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