Donald Trump Jr., has been as intrigued to hear about The Apprentice reboot as you are.
The businessman and president’s son had come up in internal Hollywood discussions for a potential reboot of the hit network series, according to a new Wall Street Journal report. The boardroom-competition show would be brought back by current rights-holder Amazon MGM, with Trump Jr. — who holds a number of executive positions at the Trump Organization and affiliated businesses — sitting at the head of the table making hiring and firing decisions.
But the story suggested that the discussions were only internal, and now a source confirms that: A person close to Trump Jr., tells The Hollywood Reporter that the president’s son was not aware he was being considered and learned about it from reading the paper Wednesday night.
That doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen, of course, or that Trump, Jr., couldn’t now run with it. But it does paint a picture of a series at a very nascent stage, if that. An Amazon spokesperson told THR on Wednesday that “Since our acquisition of MGM, we have had preliminary internal discussions about what’s next for The Apprentice as a property. The show is not in active development, and any reporting on details of the show or names of potential hosts would be purely speculative.”
The Journal reported that Amazon was discussing potentially rebooting the hit franchise, which ran for 15 seasons on NBC (14 with Donald Trump) and cemented the tycoon’s status as a 21st-century media figure. At 48, Trump Jr., would be brought in to give the series a new look, though after a decade of Trump prominence in politics, he brings baggage his father didn’t when the elder Trump began hosting the show in 2004.
The interest from Amazon raises the specter of another Trump family project: Melania, which elicited a backlash and calls of political bribery from Democrats when the tech giant paid a reported $40 million to snap up rights to the documentary last year. That development arc was different, however, with the Trump family actively shopping the project to buyers.
Amazon came into the rights to The Apprentice after buying MGM in 2022. That studio had itself acquired the rights when it bought Mark Burnett Prods. eight years earlier.
Whether Trump would want one of his children to occupy the TV boardroom he once ruled over is an open question. He famously disliked when Arnold Schwarzenegger took over his spot toward the end of the show’s run but has shown willingness to promote his children to positions of power.
How the president’s oldest son would fare as a reality-show staple also remains to be seen. His podcast Triggered with Donald Trump Jr., has been a reasonably sized hit since launching several years ago. But reality entertainment is a different beast than culture-wars gabbing, and many prominent personalities have struck out as they move to oversee a narrative-based competition telecast.
