‘Apprentice’ Reboot Starring Donald Trump Jr. as a host to the attention of Amazon
Amazon is considering a possible reboot of the Donald Trump-hosted reality competition show “The Apprentice” for its Prime Video streamer, according to a report late Wednesday by the Wall Street Journal. But the newspaper added that it would not be the president at the helm, but his son, Donald Trump Jr.
Amazon declined to comment but told the newspaper that the show was not in active development. “Since our acquisition of MGM, we have had preliminary internal discussions about what’s next for ‘The Apprentice’ as a property,” a spokesperson told the WSJ, but left it at that. That’s what insiders said Variety that the show is currently “not in development” and that there have not been “any discussions with anyone outside the company” about producing a reboot of “The Apprentice.”
If given the green light, the new “Apprentice” would be Amazon’s latest attempt to put the Trump family in the spotlight. In late January, Amazon released “Melania,” a documentary about First Lady Melania Trump, in the weeks leading up to her husband’s second presidential inauguration. Brett Ratner directed the film, which was criticized by critics, but managed to break the record for the best opening for a nonfiction film of the past decade after debuting to $7 million domestically.
The WSJ named Amazon MGM Studios head Mike Hopkins and other Amazon executives as spearheading the potential “Apprentice” revival, noting that Hopkins and the company “began talking internally about the reboot idea early last year, around the time Trump was sworn in for his second term, according to some people familiar with the conversations.”
Variety has also reached out to representatives for “Apprentice” executive producer Mark Burnett for comment.
“The Apprentice” followed a group of would-be entrepreneurs as they compete in a series of challenges that put their business acumen to the test. One by one, they would be eliminated at the whim of Trump, who told them with a point of his finger and his signature scowl, “You’re fired,” before leaving the competition. The winner of each season will have the opportunity to be mentored by Trump himself, who is portrayed through the show’s lens as an all-knowing, all-powerful industrial mogul. The future president hosted the show for 186 episodes from 2004-2015. The film was nominated for nine Emmys during its run and spawned several spinoffs, such as “Celebrity Apprentice” and “The Apprentice: Martha Stewart.”
In 2024, Trump revealed Variety‘s co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh said that after he left the show in 2015 to run for president, he told NBC that Ivanka would be his first choice to take over “The Apprentice” as host.
“I said, ‘The best person to hire would be Ivanka Trump,’” he said. “I didn’t push it. But I felt like Ivanka would have been by far the best person you could hire.”
The revelation was part of Setoodeh’s reporting for his 2024 book “Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass.”
