Donald Trump was “in serious talks” to play the POTUS in “Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No.”
After Sarah Palin rejected playing the president of the United States in the 2015 film, Trump, 71, almost took the role, in part because of his friendship with the franchise’s hero, Ian Ziering.
Ziering, 53, had previously appeared on “Celebrity Apprentice.”
“The Donald said yes,” David Latt, co-founder of The Asylum Productions, told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview released Wednesday. “He was thrilled to be asked.”
However, before shooting ever began, Trump’s real-life presidential aspirations took precedence over his onscreen leadership.
Trump’s team informed Latt and casting director Gerald Webb that the timing wasn’t quite right because Trump was “thinking about making a legitimate run for the presidency … This might not be the best time.”
The role, which included a scene where the president shoots sharks that ended up inside the White House before impaling a Great White with an American flag, instead went to one of Trump’s biggest television rivals: Mark Cuban.
The highly-publicized move didn’t sit well with the now commander-in-chief’s lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, who reportedly called Latt in a fury once the news broke.
“He basically said, ‘How dare you? Donald wanted to do this. We’re going to sue you! We’re going to shut the entire show down,'” Latt recalled.
Cohen, however, told THR that he did not recall any “angry correspondence.”