{"id":288130,"date":"2026-02-09T01:23:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T01:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/288130\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T01:23:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T01:23:07","slug":"amazons-melania-documentary-stumbles-in-second-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/288130\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon\u2019s \u2018Melania\u2019 documentary stumbles in second weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/02\/01\/amazons-melania-documentary-makes-7m-on-opening-weekend\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a better-than-expected opening weekend<\/a> in theaters, box office for Amazon\u2019s \u201cMelania\u201d <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2026\/film\/box-office\/melania-box-office-plunges-send-help-stays-first-slow-super-bowl-1236656120\/\" target=\"_blank\">fell 67%<\/a>, to an estimated $2.37 million, in its second weekend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The documentary about First Melania Trump has grossed <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.boxofficemojo.com\/release\/rl4287397889\/?ref_=bo_da_table_7\" target=\"_blank\">a total of $13.5 million so far<\/a> (almost all of that in the United States), which means it\u2019s extremely unlikely the film \u2014 which Amazon spent $40 million to acquire and $35 million to market \u2014 will break even in theaters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Before \u201cMelania\u201d\u2019s release, a former Amazon film executive <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/01\/28\/business\/media\/amazon-melania-trump-film-critics.html\" target=\"_blank\">asked how the price tag could be motivated by anything other<\/a> than \u201ccurrying favor\u201d with the Trump administration or \u201can outright bribe.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Moviegoing typically slows during Super Bowl weekend, but the weekend\u2019s top film, \u201cSend Help,\u201d only declined 47%. And after placing third on the charts last weekend, \u201cMelania\u201d is ninth this time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Perhaps anticipating discussion about the film\u2019s decline, Amazon released a statement from its head of domestic theatrical distribution Kevin Wilson, who said, \u201cTogether, theatrical and streaming represent two distinct value creating moments that amplify the film\u2019s overall impact.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cMelania\u201d received <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.metacritic.com\/movie\/melania\/\" target=\"_blank\">universally negative reviews from critics<\/a>, but its 99% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes was so good that the site <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-news\/melania-movie-rotten-tomatoes-audience-score-critics-1236497256\/\" target=\"_blank\">put out a statement insisting that the score was real<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a better-than-expected opening weekend in theaters, box office for Amazon\u2019s \u201cMelania\u201d fell 67%, to an estimated $2.37&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[3468,93,61,60,94761,22680,270],"class_list":{"0":"post-288130","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-amazon","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-melania","13":"tag-melania-trump","14":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}