At 94, Clint Eastwood is set to debut his latest directorial effort with Juror No 2 in cinemas next month.

And it turns out the Hollywood legend was recently asked to helm a new Donald Trump movie.

The Apprentice, which stars Sebastain Stan as a young Trump during his real estate business years in 1970s and 1980s New York, struggled to get made.

The new movie’s director Ali Abbasi told Le Figaro that other filmmakers didn’t want to risk their career on the controversial movie, as major studios turned it down.

Both Paul Thomas Anderson and Eastwood said no to directing the project as “they had to assess the business risk”.

Eastwood’s is also a political conservative and registered Libertarian, although he endorsed Democrat candidate Michael Bloomberg at the 2020 presidential election.

That was after the Hollywood icon had changed his mind on Trump, who in 2016 he’d said was “onto something” and “secretly everybody’s getting tired of political correctness, kissing up.” We’re really in a pissy generation. Everybody’s walking on eggshells. We see people accusing people of being racist and all kinds of stuff. When I grew up, those things weren’t called racist.”

Although he approved of “certain things” Trump had done, he wished he would act “in a more genteel way, without tweeting and calling people names. I would personally like for him to not bring himself to that level.”

Meanwhile, The Apprentice movie has proven controversial because its US release was “almost banned”.

Following The Apprentice’s world premiere at Cannes in May, the film had difficulty finding a domestic distributor over content concerns and an attempt by Trump’s legal team to have its release blocked. Nevertheless, Briarcliff Entertainment secured a deal in August.

Succession star Jeremy Strong, who plays Trump mentor and lawyer Roy Cohn in The Apprentice, said recently: “I don’t know if people in this country are aware of it, but this movie very nearly was banned essentially from being released in this country, which to me just makes it even more essentia viewing. I find it really troubling that in 2024 we were almost not allowwed to see a film that I think portrays this person in a pretty accurate truthful way.”

The Apprentice is released in UK cinemas on October 18, 2024.