What Is The ‘Melania’ Documentary And Does Anyone Care?
If you’ve spent any time this month watching the NFL playoffs, you’ve probably seen at least one commercial for Melania. If you, like me, immediately tuned out after seeing Melania Trump’s face, you may be wondering what this movie is and why anyone would care. Don’t worry, I’m here to answer all your questions about the movie’s content and its box office prospects.
What’s Melania About?
Melania takes place in the 20 days leading up to President Donald Trump’s second inauguration. “Step inside Melania Trump’s world as she orchestrates inauguration plans, navigates the complexities of the White House transition, and moves her family back to the Nation’s Capital. With exclusive footage capturing critical meetings, private conversations, and never-before-seen environments, Melania showcases Mrs. Trump’s return to one of the world’s most powerful roles,” Amazon MGM’s official description of the film reads.
Wait, Amazon is funding this?
Not exactly? While Amazon didn’t finance the documentary’s production, it acquired it for $45 million and has spent another $30 million on marketing. $75 million for a documentary that will only play to a quarter of the American audience and has dubious prospects overseas is crazy work. The spending has many industry insiders seeing the move as a blatant attempt by Amazon to curry favor with the Trump administration.
Who Was Broke Enough To Take This Job?
That would be disgraced director Brett Ratner. You may know Ratner from the Rush Hour trilogy. He hasn’t made a film since the forgettable 2014 Dwayne Johnson flick Hercules. He was blacklisted from Hollywood after several actors, including Olivia Munn and Eliott Page, publicly accused him of sexual harassment and assault at the height of the #MeToo movement. Last month, a photo was released from the Epstein Files showing Ratner intimately hugging Jean-Luc Brunel. Brunel was an Epstein associate who committed suicide in jail while facing charges for raping a minor and trafficking minors to Epstein.
These (alleged) predators really do move in flocks.
Ratner is positioning this movie as his comeback, and has leveraged his relationship with Trump to convince Paramount to green-light Rush Hour 4 with him at the helm.
Is Melania Going To Do Well?
Judging by early ticket sales, Melania is not going to remotely recoup its budget at the box office. Early tracking has Melania making between $1 and $5 million this weekend. Content creators have been posting videos throughout the week showing empty theaters for Melania’s opening night. I live in the very purple state of Arizona, which went for Trump in 2024. You’d think the film would have an audience here, but outside of a lone theater in Scottsdale, most of the theaters showing Melania are empty.
Documentaries typically don’t set the box office on fire. The best recent comparison to make is 2024’s Am I Racist? from right-wing outlet The Daily Wire. It made $4.5 million in its opening weekend, becoming the third-highest opening for a documentary in a decade and the highest for a political documentary since Fahrenheit 9/11 in 2004. The film went on to gross $12.3 million during its theatrical run. If Melania performs similarly, that will be a catastrophic performance for a film with its budget.
It also doesn’t help that the White House is facing criticism for holding the film’s premiere at the Kennedy Center on Saturday evening, only hours after VA nurse Alex Pretti was fatally shot by an ICE agent.
How Can I Ensure Melania Flops?
Now you’re asking the real questions. I recommend all Americans go to the movies this weekend to watch anything but Melania.
My friends and I call this the No Hard Feelings strategy. When The Flash was released in 2023, it came out alongside the Jennifer Lawrence comedy No Hard Feelings. When the boys and I read that it had a serious shot of blocking The Flash from taking the number one spot that weekend, we immediately bought tickets. Not because we particularly wanted to see the movie, but because we wanted to see Ezra Miller’s (allegedly) creepy ass fail.
Take the kiddos to see Zootopia 2, catch Avatar: Fire and Ash if you haven’t already. Check out Sam Raimi’s latest horror-comedy, Send Help, which is getting rave reviews. Personally, I’m going to watch Iron Lung to really drive the point home.
Iron Lung is a film from YouTuber and actor Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach. Markiplier produced the film independently, with its budget being only a fraction of what Amazon is spending on Melania. All Trump cares about is ratings, and I think it would be hilarious if a movie by a YouTuber outgrosses a propaganda doc about the sitting first lady.
If there’s anything to be learned from Melania, it’s why official documentaries about sitting Presidents and first ladies have never been done before. Melania’s success or failure was always going to be directly tied to how the public feels about the Trump administration. With Trump’s approval ratings plummeting, and public outrage still high over the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration officers, mass audiences simply aren’t in the mood to watch a puff piece about the first lady.
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GOP Votes To Name Kennedy Center Opera House After Melania Trump
