LOS ANGELES, Aug 31 — A controversial biopic of Donald Trump that depicts the former president raping his wife and which has drawn legal threats from his attorneys will hit US theatres this October, it was reported yesterday.

Tiny indie studio Briarcliff Entertainment plans to release The Apprentice for US audiences less than a month before Trump takes on Kamala Harris in the country’s razor-tight presidential election, the Hollywood Reporter said.

Representatives for Briarcliff did not immediately respond to AFP queries.

The explosive film about Trump’s younger years caused shockwaves at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

Its most talked about scene shows Trump raping his first wife, Ivana, after she belittles him for growing fat and bald.

In real life, Ivana accused Trump of raping her during divorce proceedings but later rescinded the allegation. She died in 2022.

The movie also shows Trump suffering erectile dysfunction and undergoing liposuction and surgery for hair loss.

Just hours after The Apprentice premiered in May, Trump’s lawyers vowed to sue the producers, calling the film "garbage” and "pure malicious defamation.”

Further complicating the film’s prospects for US release is that one of its early financial backers was pro-Trump billionaire Dan Snyder, who was reportedly displeased with its depiction of Trump and sought to block the movie.

He has now been bought out of his financial stake in the movie, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The film is set to be released in US theatres October 11, the Los Angeles Times said.

Sebastian Stan’s lead performance as young New York property tycoon Trump received largely positive reviews at Cannes.

The film’s screenplay was written by Gabriel Sherman, a journalist who covered real estate for the New York Observer and regularly spoke to Trump.

Far from a simple hatchet job, the film depicts Trump as an ambitious but naive social climber desperately trying to navigate the cutthroat world of Manhattan property deals and politics.

The Times of London argued it would "make you feel sympathy for Trump.”

But Trump’s decency is gradually eroded as he learns the dark arts of dealmaking and power from his mentor Roy Cohn, played by Succession star Jeremy Strong.

Film director Ali Abbasi told AFP he included the rape scene to show how Trump distanced himself from "human relationships that define him and that hold him in check as a human being.”

Stan, best known from the Marvel superhero movies, added that Trump’s early behaviour "is much more relatable than we want to admit.”

Briarcliff Entertainment launched in the late 2010s. Its founder Tom Ortenberg previously helped steer Oscar campaigns for best picture winners Spotlight and Crash.

He is expected to promote The Apprentice in Hollywood’s upcoming award season.

The news comes on the same day Reagan, another biopic of a former Republican president, Ronald Reagan, hits US theatres. — AFP