That’s what his prospective financiers seem to think, at least. “I got a lot of, ‘Yeah, you wouldn’t get the money for that at the moment, I’m afraid,'” Iannucci shared. “So I said, ‘Why not?’ [They replied] ‘Well, you know, if you want what comes with it…'” According to some journalists he’s been talking to, the consequences really are that bad. “If you’re on the list, your life is made miserable,” they apparently said. “[The message was], the inland revenue will come calling, you better lawyer up, you will spend the next four years just weighed down by legal issues you have to get through.”
We’ve already seen one case study in Ali Abassi’s The Apprentice, the 2024 Sebastian Stan-led biopic that had its release bogged down by a slew of legal challenges from both Trump’s campaign and billionaire investor Dan Snyder (who guessed, for some reason, that the film would be a flattering portrayal of his buddy). That was all before Trump was even elected. Since taking office, the president’s threats toward artists, politicians, comedians, and others who have dared to dissent have only gotten louder and more consequential. Just looked at what happened to Jimmy Kimmel.
Iannucci has vowed not to abandon his Trump project (“Let’s see what happens,” he said), and is weighing whether to start approaching non-American sources for funding. That route could present its own challenges, however. The filmmaker explained that projects in the U.K. are currently stalling due to Trump’s renewed threat of foreign movie tariffs. “Nobody knows how it works, but that’s not the point,” he said. “The point is, there will be financiers in America about to give money to a project going, ‘Do you know what? Let’s just see how this plays out before I hand that over.’ And so you’ll have another project sitting there.”
