Culture | Stage fright

Donald Trump’s return is making Hollywood nervous

News and politics are being left out of the streaming boom

Shadows of people walking past the former President Donald Trump star along the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard.
Photograph: Getty Images
|LOS ANGELES

The standing ovation lasted for more than ten minutes. “The Apprentice”, a dramatisation of the early career of Donald Trump, had one of the buzziest premieres at the Cannes Film Festival in May, with Hollywood grandees in attendance, including Cate Blanchett, an actress, and Oliver Stone, a director. Distributors snapped up the rights to release the title in many countries. But in America no big studio was willing to touch it. The reason is simple, says one American content buyer, glancing around a restaurant in Beverly Hills to check for eavesdroppers: “Fear.”

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This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Hollywood’s stage fright”

From the June 29th 2024 edition

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