{"id":454767,"date":"2026-02-07T16:29:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T16:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/454767\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T16:29:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T16:29:12","slug":"rotten-tomatoes-addresses-fake-user-score-claims-for-melania-movie-after-documentary-set-new-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/454767\/","title":{"rendered":"Rotten Tomatoes addresses \u2018fake\u2019 user score claims for Melania movie after documentary set new record"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Rotten Tomatoes<\/a> has shut down speculation that the high audience score for Melania Trump<\/a> documentary Melania was the result of \u201cmanipulation\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Amazon movie about the First Lady, directed by Brett Ratner, broke records for the review aggregator website this week for the dubious honour of achieving the biggest discrepancy<\/a> between critics\u2019 scores and audience ratings in the last 27 years. <\/p>\n

Critical response to the film, which was released in cinemas at the end of January and debuted at number 29 at the UK box office<\/a>, has been poor, picking up just 8 per cent on the Rotten Tomatoes \u201cTomatometer\u201d. <\/p>\n

However, it received a 99 per cent score from cinemagoers on the \u201cPopcornmeter\u201d, prompting some film fans to speculate that some of those fan reviews might not be entirely legitimate.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Rotten Tomatoes\u2019 parent company Versant told Variety that \u201cthere has been NO manipulation on the audience reviews for the Melania documentary\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Melania<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Melania Trump in her new documentary, \u2018Melania\u2019 (Amazon)<\/p>\n

They added that \u201creviews displayed on the Popcornmeter are VERIFIED reviews, meaning that it has been verified that users have bought a ticket to the film through Fandango\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a wonderful opportunity to learn more about Melania \u2013 her warmth, compassion, and dedication to this country,\u201d one viewer wrote of the film. <\/p>\n

\u201cBeautifully done!\u201d another fan raved. \u201cSophistication and class. Amazing First Lady!\u201d<\/p>\n

Amazon reportedly spent $40 million on acquiring the rights for the film, as well as a further $35 million on marketing.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

The film has defied expectations in the US, but flopped in the UK and Ireland (Getty)<\/p>\n

In the United States, it has exceeded box office expectations, taking $7 million at the box office in the opening weekend.<\/p>\n

Over in the UK and Ireland, however, it has not fared as well, amassing \u00a332,974 from 155 cinemas in total, a screen average of \u00a3212.80.<\/p>\n

In a one star review<\/a>, The Independent\u2019s Nick Hilton described the film as \u201csomewhere between reality TV and pure fiction\u201d, and suggested that \u201cto call Melania vapid would do a disservice to the plumes of florid vape smoke that linger around British teenagers\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is American history through the idiosyncratic prism of a woman who is part-puppet of the regime, part-delusional creative, and part-symbol of America\u2019s immigrant community,\u201d he argued. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[88,206],"class_list":{"0":"post-454767","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454767","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=454767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}