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.”

Explore more

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

France’s centre cannot hold

From the June 29th 2024 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

More from Culture

The real theme of J.D. Vance’s and Donald Trump’s memoirs

“Hillbilly Elegy” and “The Art of the Deal” reveal a lot about who the men are—and were

How “The Blair Witch Project” changed horror films

Released 25 years ago, it was a masterclass in doing more with less


A poignant reflection on Native American “blood quantum” laws

A new novel follows a man cast out from the tribe in which he grew up


More from Culture

The real theme of J.D. Vance’s and Donald Trump’s memoirs

“Hillbilly Elegy” and “The Art of the Deal” reveal a lot about who the men are—and were

How “The Blair Witch Project” changed horror films

Released 25 years ago, it was a masterclass in doing more with less


A poignant reflection on Native American “blood quantum” laws

A new novel follows a man cast out from the tribe in which he grew up


The wonderful world of Ireland’s greatest sports

Gaelic football and hurling are loved by millions across the island. And nobody gets paid

Plenty of words have no clear origin

A new book investigating strange etymologies reads like a detective story