When screenwriter Gabriel Sherman set out to make his new film The Apprentice, he received a chunk of change from an unlikely source: Trump supporter and former Washington football team owner Dan Snyder.
“I've subsequently learned, just through my own reporting on my own film, that Dan Snyder had never read the script,” says Sherman. “According to my sources, he wasn't involved in Kinematics’ day to day and Mark Rappaport never showed him the script. I don't even understand what Dan Snyder knew about the movie.”
In the second half of our two part conversation, we talk to Sherman and Briarcliff Entertainment founder Tom Ortenberg — who stepped in to release The Apprentice when most of the rest of Hollywood ran away from it. Ortenberg tells us more about his fondness for shepherding divisive films — including the 2023 Sundance attention-grabber Magazine Dreams. The film was ultimately shelved by Searchlight Pictures after its star Jonathan Majors was convicted on assault and harassment charges.