{"id":437331,"date":"2026-01-29T18:21:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T18:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/437331\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T18:21:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T18:21:09","slug":"melania-pulled-from-theaters-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/437331\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Melania’ Pulled from Theaters in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAmazon MGM Studios<\/a>\u2018 Brett Ratner documentary, Melania<\/a>, has been nixed from South African theaters, which sources inform us were political reasons. <\/p>\n

\n\tThat said, the pic\u2019s South African distributor, Filmfinity\u2019s head of sales and marketing, Thobashan Govindarajulu didn\u2019t provide reasons for the movie\u2019s last-minute pull. He informed the New York Times, \u201cThat was our decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe movie, which follows the First Lady in the 20 days leading up to the 2025 inauguration, opens Friday around the globe and is expected to see around $5M stateside in 1,500 theaters, possibly the best start for a documentary in the last decade. Presales in the U.S. are already at $1M. Melania\u2018s advance ticket sales are faring well in rural areas with populations under 500,000. We\u2019re also hearing that key showtimes are selling out at the Century City AMC in Los Angeles and NYC Lincoln Plaza. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBased on recent developments, we\u2019ve taken the decision to not go ahead with a theatrical release in [the] territory,\u201d South African theatrical distributor\u00a0Filmfinity told\u00a0The New York Times\u2018 Johannesburg bureau. Today\u2019s news about Melania was broken by South African outlet\u00a0News24. <\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Amazon MGM Studios is building out its own foreign theatrical distribution around the globe, they have FilmNation handling international distribution and marketing with buyers around the world. Among the territories that Melania is playing in are UK, Spain, and Mexico. Amazon MGM Studios licensed the documentary for $40M and is spending around $30M in worldwide P&A.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmazon didn\u2019t respond to request for comment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amazon MGM Studios\u2018 Brett Ratner documentary, Melania, has been nixed from South African theaters, which sources inform us…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[12779,88,163617,206],"class_list":{"0":"post-437331","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-amazon-mgm-studios","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-melania","11":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}