{"id":270955,"date":"2026-02-02T23:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T23:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/270955\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T23:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T23:48:08","slug":"melania-opens-strong-for-a-doc-but-will-struggle-to-succeed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/270955\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Melania’ Opens Strong for a Doc But Will Struggle to Succeed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just as quickly as media outlets far beyond Hollywood were quick to point out the enormous $75 million that Amazon<\/a> MGM paid to release and market the documentary \u201cMelania<\/a>\u201d \u2014 as well as an upcoming docuseries \u2014 White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in an interview on Fox News was quick to call the film<\/a> about the First Lady a \u201cblockbuster.\u201d<\/p>\n

The early assessment is not wrong: \u201cMelania\u201d did have the largest openings for a documentary film at the box office<\/a> in over a decade, but given the film\u2019s price tag<\/a>, it doesn\u2019t necessarily make it a success.<\/p>\n

\u201cMelania\u201d 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\u2019s audience was female, 72 percent were over 55, and 75 percent were white. <\/p>\n

\"LITTLE<\/a> \"PARK<\/a> <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

If you only looked at its performance compared to recent documentaries and set the film\u2019s budget aside (more on that in a bit), \u201cMelania\u201d had the highest opening weekend for a doc film, excluding concert movies, in over a decade. According to Comscore, it\u2019s behind 2012\u2019s \u201cChimpanzee\u201d with $10.6 million, and 2007\u2019s \u201cEarth\u201d with $8.8 million, but it opened higher than other Disney nature docs like \u201cOceans\u201d (2010) and \u201cAfrican Cats\u201d (2011).<\/p>\n

Two recent comps of conservative leaning documentary releases include \u201cAfter Death\u201d from Angel Studios in 2023, which opened to $5 million and ultimately made $11.4 million domestic, and \u201cAm I Racist?,\u201d which opened to $4.5 million back in 2024 and legged out to $12.3 million domestic. \u201cMelania\u201d could expect to perform in a similar ballpark, but it would be a long road for it to reach Dinesh D\u2019Souza\u2019s \u201c2016: Obama\u2019s America\u201d (2012), which ultimately made $33.4 million. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a different world for documentaries, even \u201cMelania,\u201d and very few are performing theatrically<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Amazon though said it\u2019s \u201cvery encouraged\u201d by the start for \u201cMelania,\u201d according to a statement from Amazon MGM Studios\u2019 Head of Domestic Theatrical Distribution, Kevin Wilson, and the studio added that the film is \u201cexceeding our expectations\u201d and should have \u201clong-term value\u201d once it rolls out on Prime Video.<\/p>\n

That, of course, will be the ultimate barometer for the film\u2019s success, how well it does on streaming rather than in theaters. If more people sign up to Amazon Prime in order to watch \u201cMelania\u201d at home, they see ads, they buy products, and whatever it makes in theaters is gravy. That\u2019s the narrative Amazon will ultimately need to spin if it hopes to beat accusations from some lawmakers that the $75 million spent on \u201cMelania\u201d wasn\u2019t just a kickback to the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

But the price tag is so enormous \u2014 Amazon spent $40 million to acquire the movie and another $35 million to market it \u2014 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\u2019s \u201cFahrenheit 9\/11<\/a>\u201d is the most successful, theatrically released documentary ever, and it made $119.1 million, not including inflation.<\/p>\n

Had Amazon released \u201cMelania\u201d 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<\/a>, so theaters won\u2019t mind the content.<\/p>\n

\u201cMelania\u201d wasn\u2019t screened to critics in advance, but the press predictably has not been kind<\/a>, saying it\u2019s hardly a documentary but a commercial that\u2019s barely revealing. Journalists were also largely barred from attending the premiere screening<\/a> at the (now closed for reconstruction) Kennedy Center. Amazon also this year laid off 16,000 employees<\/a> just as everyone is discussing the $75 million budget for the film. \\<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, including actresses Olivia Munn and Natasha Henstridge, as part of a Los Angeles Times report. He denied the claims.<\/p>\n

Those things don\u2019t factor into the box office numbers, but it adds to the cost all the same. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just as quickly as media outlets far beyond Hollywood were quick to point out the enormous $75 million…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[1457,1239,458,146,878,85,46,98561,20401],"class_list":{"0":"post-270955","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-amazon","9":"tag-box-office","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-film","13":"tag-il","14":"tag-israel","15":"tag-melania","16":"tag-melania-trump"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}