{"id":448086,"date":"2026-01-30T20:31:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T20:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/448086\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T20:31:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T20:31:14","slug":"to-understand-melania-trumps-movie-we-might-need-to-follow-the-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/448086\/","title":{"rendered":"To understand Melania Trump’s movie we might need to follow the money"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a glorious example of British civility and understatement.<\/p>\n

When the boss of a major UK cinema chain was this week asked by The Telegraph newspaper<\/a> how ticket sales for Melania Trump’s movie were doing, he replied, “Soft.”<\/p>\n

At the time, just one seat had been purchased for the first screening of the US first lady’s bio-doc at his organisation’s main London theatre complex.<\/p>\n

Finding less restrained assessments on MELANIA, the movie, isn’t hard.<\/p>\n

“I think this is probably something that could have gone straight to streaming,” one academic told the ABC this week, while another quipped: “If a movie plays to a slew of empty theatres, was it ever there at all?”<\/p>\n

Amazon, through its media subsidiary MGM Studios, has spent a reported $US75 million (at least $105 million) to distribute and market the film.<\/p>\n

It’s an investment that’s been widely ridiculed this week, but could the company’s largest shareholder and executive chairman, Jeff Bezos, be the one who has the last laugh?<\/p>\n

\"Melania<\/p>\n

Melania Trump promoted her new film at the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday. (Reuters: Brendan McDermid)<\/p>\n

MELANIA was released globally in more than 3,000 cinemas on Friday.<\/p>\n

It documents 20 days in the first lady’s life, leading up to her husband Donald Trump’s inauguration last January.<\/p>\n

The US president this week took to social media to describe the film as “a must watch” and claimed tickets were “selling out fast”.<\/p>\n

That doesn’t seem to be the case.<\/p>\n

People in multiple US cities posted screenshots online of empty seat maps, pointing out some sessions were likely to be completely unattended.<\/p>\n

It was a similar story in Australia.<\/p>\n

At 12am AEDT Friday, Hoyts \u2014 which operates dozens of theatres Down Under \u2014 appeared to have pre-sold fewer than 50 tickets to screenings around the country on the movie’s opening day.<\/p>\n

While the company did not respond to an ABC inquiry, its main competitor, Event Cinemas, did, but only to confirm it was not planning on showing the film.<\/p>\n

In South Africa, MELANIA’s distributor Filmfinity cancelled its release this week, citing “recent developments”, without specifying what those were.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Donald and Melania Trump were all smiles at the film’s premiere \u00a0in Washington DC on Thursday. (Reuters: Kevin Lamarque)<\/p>\n

Reasons behind ‘breathtaking’ cash splash<\/p>\n

The slow ticket sales come despite a $US35 million marketing splurge, which has included ads during the NFL playoffs, a takeover of the famed LED exterior of the Sphere in Las Vegas and electronic billboard space in New York’s Times Square.<\/p>\n

Amazon also paid $US40 million to Ms Trump’s production company to get distribution rights to MELANIA, a record for a documentary and about $US26 million more than the next-best offer, made by Disney.<\/p>\n

Mark Shanahan, an associate professor of political engagement at the University of Surrey, described the spend as “breathtaking”.<\/p>\n

“Someone might have thought it was a good idea to build the first lady’s profile with a vanity project puff piece,” he said. “She’s not very popular.”<\/p>\n

Estimates as to MELANIA’s opening weekend takings range from between $US1 million-$US5 million.<\/p>\n

“Documentary is known to be a format that doesn’t generate big profits,” a film academic told the ABC. “I doubt it will reach $5 million. It looks to me like people will just avoid it.”<\/p>\n

To compare, a documentary on former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s time in office released last year has grossed about $US880,000 at the box office, however its total production budget was less than $US2 million.<\/p>\n

A 2018 documentary on the late US Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was produced for about $US1 million, with a further $US3 million spent on promoting it. It grossed about $US14 million in ticket sales.<\/p>\n

Criticisms of MELANIA go far beyond its price tag, though.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

An advertisement for MELANIA was splashed in New York earlier this week. (Reuters: Jeenah Moon)<\/p>\n

The film’s director, Brett Ratner, had not worked in Hollywood since 2017 after being the subject of multiple sexual assault allegations, which he denies.<\/p>\n

Two thirds of MELANIA’s production team have reportedly requested to be left off the credits.<\/p>\n

“I feel a little bit uncomfortable with the propaganda element of this [movie], but Brett Ratner was the worst part of working on this project,” one of them told Rolling Stone magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then there’s the fact the first lady was a producer on the project. It’s led critics to question whether MELANIA’s label as a documentary is accurate, given the subject of it has had so much editorial control.<\/p>\n

Dr Shanahan points out that people laughing about the film’s poor ticket sales are likely missing the “overt means” Bezos, one of the world’s richest people, could be using to buy favour with the White House, as other business leaders have.<\/p>\n

“Bezos would have known the public won’t turn out for this,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Trump won’t care either. Amazon MGM’s payment will enhance the family bank balance very nicely.<\/p>\n

“Melania gets a chance to shape her own narrative, and Bezos can publicly demonstrate his fealty to Project Trump while gaining an inside track around regulation roll back on such issues as AI.<\/p>\n

“Everyone wins except the audience.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a glorious example of British civility and understatement. When the boss of a major UK cinema…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[2574,64,63,1691,2490,134,11917,230308,52955,168727,15460,30461,427],"class_list":["post-448086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-amazon","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-documentary","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-jeff-bezos","tag-melania","tag-melania-trump","tag-mgm-studios","tag-movie","tag-tickets","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}