Pitch meeting

Givin 'em what they don't know they want

[Oval Office. Along with the added gilt ornamentation and the gold-covered statuettes we saw last time, there are now several crappy AI images of TRUMP — muscleman, Rambo, quarterback, Patton, etc. — in ornate frames covering the walls. TRUMP is dressed per usual and sitting at the Resolute Desk, snorting lines of The Formula; SYLVESTER STALLONE, wearing a charcoal Todd Snyder Italian linen Wythe jacket and pants with matching tie and a white shirt with an English cutaway collar, stands before him with his hands folded in front of him.]

TRUMP: Sure you don’t want some of this?

STALLONE: Nah, Mr. President, I had too much of that back in the day.

TRUMP: Not like this, Sly. Like rocket fuel. I’d be a vegetable without it.

[TRUMP finishes, shoves the works in a drawer, closes it.]

OK, so nutshell, you go to Hollywood and tell these people they better start making movies the way people want ‘em.

STALLONE: How do you mean, sir?

TRUMP: You know what I mean.

[TRUMP stands with a little trouble, maneuvers around the desk.]

Whoa. I mean pictures like they used to. ‘cause I’m handing them an opportunity here, right, getting rid of the foreign pictures with the tariff.

STALLONE: OK.

TRUMP: I don’t get it. They don’t even dub ‘em in English. You gotta read the words on the bottom, like a news crawl. No wonder nobody goes. Plus, used to be, foreign movie meant Gina Lollobrigida, Sophia Loren. Something you could beat your meat to, know what I mean?

STALLONE: Oh, yes sir.

TRUMP: You ever fuck her? Sophia Loren?

STALLONE: A little before my time, sir.

TRUMP: Mine too. Now it’s all these horsey broads, mean faces, like they smell shit. But even the American movies, nobody goes. You don’t go, right?

STALLONE: I just saw Sinners, sir. Place was pretty full.

TRUMP: That’s the one with the spooks, right?

[Beat.]

STALLONE: There’s a supernatural thing going on, yeah.

TRUMP: If you say so, but my people tell me only the bums go now, for a place to sleep. But that’s gonna change. Now it’s gonna cost a hundred dollars to see that foreign crap, but American movies? Maybe twenty dollars. Already we’re ahead, right?

STALLONE: Yes, sir.

TRUMP: [Gestures to love seat] Take a seat. I’m all hopped up. You take a seat.

STALLONE: OK, sir.

[STALLONE sits.]

TRUMP: OK, so here’s what I want you to tell ‘em. ‘Scuse me.

[In one smooth gesture TRUMP takes an inhaler out of his jacket pocket, sprays up his nose, snorts, and replaces it.]

The krauts, Japs, limeys, all that, they’re out. Finished. Now Hollywood got the market to themselves. But they gotta do the right thing. Right? They gotta give people what they want. First, no girl can be a star unless she’s a D cup at least. Like that Sidney Sweeney. She’s a 34D, maybe double D. That should be the baseline.

STALLONE: Uh huh.

TRUMP: Don’t matter if she’s got a pretty face. I thought that Zendaya was something, then they cut to long shot. What a disappointment. And the men, they can’t be faggy. That Timmy Chalamet. We gotta get rid of him.

STALLONE: Get rid of him, sir?

TRUMP: Yeah. He’s disgusting. People hate that guy.

STALLONE: Well, I hate to disagree, sir, but he’s one of the biggest stars in the world. I mean, his pictures make –

TRUMP: Don’t matter.

STALLONE: Don’t matter? But sir, that’s what a star is — when your pictures make money —

TRUMP: [Loud] I said it don’t matter!

[Pause. TRUMP gets another snort.]

Tellin’ me what a star is. Know how many Oscars I have? Zero! Like you!

[TRUMP holds his arms out.]

But you and me, we’re bigger than any of them. The whole world knows who we are.

[TRUMP taps himself on the chest.]

Except I can still draw a crowd. I’m making millions, billions, trillions! Sent my two idiot kids to the Saudis. Four billion at least. For what? So they can shake Eric’s hand? For me! That’s star power! Maybe you forgot, but I didn’t. People don’t know what they want. You gotta show ‘em. They think they like Sinners, Barbie-heimer, all that crap. When was the last time they saw Sly Stallone? I don’t mean Sly the Old Man like in those pictures where you’re a second banana. I mean Sly the star. With the AI, we can fix it so you’re Rambo again —

[TRUMP goes to the wall, taps an image of himself as Rambo, all muscled.]

— like this. Get me? They buy it from me, they’ll buy it from you. And you’re movin’ around. You’re hoppin’ over walls, beatin’ guys up, climbing the sides of buildings, you get the girl, you fuck the girl. R-rated, but we do it for real. You like Cynthia Sweeney, we can get her. And we get some of my people —

[TRUMP does another quick snort.]

— they write you stories like, I don’t know, you’re in ICE and there’s spic scumbags, they got the girl, and to get ‘em ya gotta go rogue, you beat up some Democrats, Chuck Schumer, AOC, Kamala, a, a communist reporter, a, woke, trans, librarian, schoolteacher, but it’s the Venezuelans you really get, oh boy, do you get ‘em, you go in there, their headquarters, it’s in Alcatraz, and you punch your way through and you get to Mr. Big and you beat that fucking dirtbag so he sprays blood and spits out teeth and his eyes pop out of his face and his head blows up.

[Pause. TRUMP is breathing heavily.]

And then you fuck Sylvia Sweeney again.

[TRUMP walks to the desk rubbing his hands, sits.]

All you gotta do is sell it. You don’t even have to do that.

[TRUMP hauls out the works again.]

They know it’s me, they’ll bend over. So, whattaya say?

[TRUMP lays out lines. STALLONE crosses to the desk, takes a bill he has tightly wound into a straw, gestures; TRUMP nodes, and STALLONE does a line. He stands upright.]

STALLONE: Zendaya.

TRUMP: [Shrugs] Why not? We can make you Rambo, we can give her tits.

[“Tulsa King” bumper music.]