{"id":459481,"date":"2026-02-05T06:17:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T06:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/459481\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T06:17:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T06:17:19","slug":"melania-documentary-pulled-from-cinema-over-joke-made-on-marquee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/459481\/","title":{"rendered":"Melania documentary pulled from cinema over joke made on marquee"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>But the cinema lost the rights to the movie after Amazon was informed of the message on the sign outside the cinema.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/950234dc-e47d-4996-b7af-d3e090ce12db.jpeg\"   alt=\"The cheeky sign which saw Lake Theatre lose its rights to screen Melania.\"\/>The cheeky sign which saw Lake Theatre lose its rights to screen Melania. (Facebook)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Does Melania wear Prada? Find out Friday!&#8221; the marquee read.<\/p>\n<p>Another sign read: &#8220;To defeat your enemy, you must know them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In a blog post, cinema manager Jordan Perry revealed how much the movie had made for the Jeff Bezos-owned Amazon at his theatre.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We contributed $196 to the Jeff Bezos Trust Fund this week.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Jeff Bezos won&#8217;t notice the $196. He wouldn&#8217;t notice $1960, though someone on his team noticed our marquee.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The marquee now reads: &#8220;Amazon called. Our marquee made them mad. &#8220;All Melania shows cancelled. Show your support at Whole Foods instead.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Whole Foods is a grocery chain also owned by Amazon.\ufeff<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/cc968213-000b-430e-aab9-48ac44221b64.jpeg\"   alt=\"Lake Theatre in Lake Oswego, Oregon, is well known for its wry marquee.\"\/>Lake Theatre in Lake Oswego, Oregon, is well known for its wry marquee. (Instagram)<\/p>\n<p>Perry&#8217;s blog post also defended screening the film in the first place, to the chagrin of people in the very progressive town south of Portland.<\/p>\n<p>Perry said he thought the notion of a documentary about Melania Trump being released funny.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If Kamala won, imagine <a href=\"https:\/\/www.9news.com.au\/world\/douglas-emhoff-kamala-harris-husband-everything-to-know-explainer\/748a2ca7-dc4f-4b63-a551-9defd6964e0f\" target=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"Douglas\">Douglas<\/a> being released this week \u2014 I mean, that&#8217;s also funny, right?&#8221; he wrote.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I did not find Melania boring! The woman, yes. The movie, no.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The cinema has a long history of wry jokes on its marquee. It described <a href=\"https:\/\/celebrity.nine.com.au\/movies\/leonardo-dicaprio-robert-de-nior-new-role-fan-movie\/ab3f0ee1-ee75-422e-95e9-49d99a2c1c2c\" target=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"Killers of the Flower Moon\">Killers of the Flower Moon<\/a>, a film with Leonardo Di Caprio and Robert De Niro, as &#8220;Starring Lily Gladstone (and some other guys)&#8221;.<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/2bcbc595-850d-4906-a6b8-0c92e7ddc961.jpeg\"   alt=\"Melania Trump at the premiere of her movie.\"\/>Melania Trump at the premiere of her movie. (AP)<\/p>\n<p>Current release Hamnet is described as &#8220;Hamnet&#8217;s about Hamlet (Sort of).&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Perry said the marquee debacle may put the cinema on &#8220;Amazon&#8217;s black list for a while&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Melania debuted in third place in the US box office with $10 million in takings.<\/p>\n<p>This makes it the highest debut for a documentary in years.<\/p>\n<p>But Melania has a steep hill to climb if it intends to be profitable for the studio.<\/p>\n<p>Amazon paid $57 million for the rights to the movie, much of which went into the First Lady&#8217;s pocket.<\/p>\n<p>It also reportedly spent a further $50 million on promoting the movie.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/8d94f460-5980-4661-a28d-f6afa0345cae.jpeg\"   alt=\"Amazon has spent tens of millions of dollars promoting Melania.\"\/>Amazon has spent tens of millions of dollars promoting Melania. (Amazon MGM)<\/p>\n<p>Melania has also shown an enormous divide between critical reception and how general audiences responded.<\/p>\n<p>Critics reviews gathered by Rotten Tomatoes showed just 7 per cent of them liked the movie.<\/p>\n<p>By contrast, 98 per cent of audience members on the site said they liked the movie.<\/p>\n<p>In Australia, Melania debuted on its opening weekend at 31st at the box office, selling just $22,284 worth of tickets.<\/p>\n<p>In its first three days in release, it sold just $675 per screen.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/5f0da8f7-a83a-458c-bb34-4234388e8eb5.jpeg\"   alt=\"Melania Trump in the upcoming documentary.\"\/>Melania Trump in the Brett Ratner-directed documentary. (Amazon MGM)<\/p>\n<p>NEVER MISS A STORY: Get your breaking news and exclusive stories first by following us across all platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But the cinema lost the rights to the movie after Amazon was informed of the message on the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,344],"class_list":["post-459481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459481","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=459481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}