Just as quickly as media outlets far beyond Hollywood were quick to point out the enormous $75 million that Amazon MGM paid to release and market the documentary “Melania” — as well as an upcoming docuseries — White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in an interview on Fox News was quick to call the film about the First Lady a “blockbuster.”
The early assessment is not wrong: “Melania” did have the largest openings for a documentary film at the box office in over a decade, but given the film’s price tag, it doesn’t necessarily make it a success.
“Melania” made $7 million in its opening weekend at the box office from 1,778 screens. Not surprisingly, it got an A CinemaScore and a 99 percent Audience Score from Rotten Tomatoes, as the film has a very specific clientele. Roughly 70 percent of the film’s audience was female, 72 percent were over 55, and 75 percent were white.
And while markets like Los Angeles and New York are absent among the exit data, the film made most of its money across the South in regions like Dallas, Orlando, Atlanta, New Orleans, and Nashville, in some pockets of the Midwest like Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Indianapolis, and parts of the West like Boise. The film also opened internationally, but Amazon MGM did not report those numbers.
If you only looked at its performance compared to recent documentaries and set the film’s budget aside (more on that in a bit), “Melania” had the highest opening weekend for a doc film, excluding concert movies, in over a decade. According to Comscore, it’s behind 2012’s “Chimpanzee” with $10.6 million, and 2007’s “Earth” with $8.8 million, but it opened higher than other Disney nature docs like “Oceans” (2010) and “African Cats” (2011).
Two recent comps of conservative leaning documentary releases include “After Death” from Angel Studios in 2023, which opened to $5 million and ultimately made $11.4 million domestic, and “Am I Racist?,” which opened to $4.5 million back in 2024 and legged out to $12.3 million domestic. “Melania” could expect to perform in a similar ballpark, but it would be a long road for it to reach Dinesh D’Souza’s “2016: Obama’s America” (2012), which ultimately made $33.4 million.
It’s a different world for documentaries, even “Melania,” and very few are performing theatrically.
Amazon though said it’s “very encouraged” by the start for “Melania,” according to a statement from Amazon MGM Studios’ Head of Domestic Theatrical Distribution, Kevin Wilson, and the studio added that the film is “exceeding our expectations” and should have “long-term value” once it rolls out on Prime Video.
That, of course, will be the ultimate barometer for the film’s success, how well it does on streaming rather than in theaters. If more people sign up to Amazon Prime in order to watch “Melania” at home, they see ads, they buy products, and whatever it makes in theaters is gravy. That’s the narrative Amazon will ultimately need to spin if it hopes to beat accusations from some lawmakers that the $75 million spent on “Melania” wasn’t just a kickback to the Trump administration.
But the price tag is so enormous — Amazon spent $40 million to acquire the movie and another $35 million to market it — that it would need to do exceptionally well in theaters to truly justify it. Theaters take half of the box office cut, so to be profitable just from theatrical, a $75 million movie would need to make $150 million. Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” is the most successful, theatrically released documentary ever, and it made $119.1 million, not including inflation.
Had Amazon released “Melania” directly to streaming, it probably would do just fine. Amazon MGM likely chose to release the film theatrically because of the added halo effect that $35 million in marketing afforded it. Amazon MGM is also planning on releasing 14 movies theatrically this year as part of a massive push into the space, so theaters won’t mind the content.
“Melania” wasn’t screened to critics in advance, but the press predictably has not been kind, saying it’s hardly a documentary but a commercial that’s barely revealing. Journalists were also largely barred from attending the premiere screening at the (now closed for reconstruction) Kennedy Center. Amazon also this year laid off 16,000 employees just as everyone is discussing the $75 million budget for the film. \
And lest we forget that the film was directed by Brett Ratner, who has been out of Hollywood after being accused of sexual harassment and misconduct by six women, including actresses Olivia Munn and Natasha Henstridge, as part of a Los Angeles Times report. He denied the claims.
Those things don’t factor into the box office numbers, but it adds to the cost all the same.