'Apprentice' filmmakers detail sales battle amid Trump's 'cowardice'

“Apprentice” filmmakers have prolonged their fight to find a distributor for the upcoming Donald Trump biopic since it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, which the film's end buyer has blamed on fear.

“I can't really speak for others, but I think it's a lot if not outright cowardice in the face of Donald Trump,” Tom Ortenberg, whose Briarcliff Entertainment ultimately saved the project, told Entertainment Weekly in a wide-ranging interview Friday with the cast and crew.

“Anyone who claims otherwise, I'd probably accuse of fibbing,” Ortenberg continued.

The film follows Trump (Sebastian Stan) and his lawyer, the notorious right-wing political fixer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), during their rise as real estate moguls in New York City in the 1980s.

Chief Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung threatened legal action after the Cannes premiere to prevent the “garbage” film from being released before November, claiming it served as “electioneering interference by the Hollywood elite.”

Its makers are not afraid of being sued.

“Trump threatened to sue the mailman, so I'm not surprised,” screenwriter and journalist Gabriel Sherman told EW. “He's basically just doing what Roy Cohn told him to do — he's attacking. … I know how rigorously researched and difficult the movie is, so I'm not worried.”

Even one of the film's own investors, former Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder, tried to block its release — after he realized at a February screening that it wasn't a flattering portrayal of Trump, as he believed.

“I remember having conversations with everyone at the beginning of the summer that this movie wasn't going to be released,” Strong told EW, adding: “And the possibility of that level of censorship in this country right now, felt like a dangerous harbinger.”

Although director Ali Abbasi said the sudden disinterest after its brilliant Cannes premiere was “quite shocking,” he understands wavering buyers “don't want to get in trouble.”

Meanwhile, Ortenberg said he still can't believe this is the same industry he joined 40 years ago, and lamented how quickly Hollywood's artistic and business communities seemed ready to appease Trump.

“It really gets to the heart of the matter, which is, when you bow the knee to authoritarianism in advance, you're just increasing the likelihood of that authoritarianism,” he added. “So to see Hollywood bend the knee to Trump in unison, I find particularly disturbing.”

“The Apprentice” hits theaters nationwide on October 11