{"id":439024,"date":"2026-01-30T14:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T14:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/439024\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T14:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T14:54:08","slug":"melania-documentary-creators-say-its-big-price-tag-wasnt-bribery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/439024\/","title":{"rendered":"Melania documentary creators say its big price tag wasn\u2019t bribery"},"content":{"rendered":"

The makers of Amazon\u2019s Melania documentary have defended its exorbitant cost following accusations of bribery to appease the Trump empire. Amazon paid $40 million<\/a> to Melania Trump\u2019s production company for the film rights and another $35 million for marketing \u2014 making it one of the most expensive documentaries ever produced<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s silly because there\u2019s a feature film and three episodes,\u201d director Brett Ratner told Deadline<\/a> at last night\u2019s premiere. \u201cWe spent more money on music in this than I did on Rush Hour. I mean, top of the line, three best cinematographers in the world, at the highest level. Eighty people on the first day of shooting in my crew. That\u2019s not unheard of in a documentary. You put the money on the screen.\u201d<\/p>\n

That budget is, actually, pretty unheard of for a documentary, sparking criticism that it\u2019s a $75 million bribe.<\/a> The New York Times<\/a> notes that the $35 million marketing budget for Melania is 10 times higher than the average spend for big documentaries, despite only taking 20 days to shoot. The first lady herself is expected to personally pocket $27 million from Amazon\u2019s $40 million licensing deal, according to The Wall Street Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Melania Trump \u2014 who is also a producer on the project \u2014 says Melania isn\u2019t a documentary at all, but in fact a \u201ccreative experience that offers perspectives, insights and moments.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The makers of Amazon\u2019s Melania documentary have defended its exorbitant cost following accusations of bribery to appease the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[88,2695,206,3,1343,111,6703],"class_list":{"0":"post-439024","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-film","10":"tag-movies","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-policy","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-tv-shows"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439024","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=439024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}