There is no guarantee that the president will be in the room if, when or even where either movie is screened. Mr. Trump, who is described in Mr. Wolff’s book as, among other attributes, having a tiny attention span, has said that he has trouble sitting through movies and knows in the first five minutes whether he will enjoy a film. He will get up and leave if he realizes he will not.

On Friday afternoon, Mr. Trump’s focus was set to stray briefly from the news media; the president traveled to Camp David to meet with Republican congressional leaders over more pressing matters, which include figuring out how to keep the government running. Mr. Trump has long toyed with the idea of clamping down on the First Amendment, going so far as to suggest at a 2016 campaign rally that he would “open up those libel laws.”

"So when The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace,” Mr. Trump told the crowd at the time, “or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they’re totally protected.”

Indeed, Mr. Trump’s lawyer sent an 11-page letter this week to Mr. Wolff’s publisher, warning that the book might “give rise to claims for libel” that could result in “substantial monetary damages and punitive damages.”

Mr. Trump’s low regard for reporters has not found favor with the stars of “The Post,” who have grown increasingly vocal after the film’s premiere.

The Nixon administration accused The Times of violating the Espionage Act, and won a temporary court order in 1971 that blocked the newspaper from publishing more of what became known as the Pentagon Papers. That is when The Washington Post, led by the publisher Katharine Graham, stepped in.

Mr. Hanks, who plays Ben Bradlee, the former editor of The Post, told The Hollywood Reporter in December that he would not attend a White House screening of his own movie.