Melania, the documentary no one asked for about a first lady no one cares about from a director no one wants to hear from again, had a theatrical-only opening on January 30. A frigid winter debut backdrop befitting its subject. Over that first weekend of release, citizens were so inspired with patriotism… that they stayed home and drove up the viewership by 13,300% of former first lady Michelle Obama’s six-year-old doc Becoming, according to Netflix stats. We talked about that last week, after the results from Melania’s second weekend box office came in and showed a 67% drop. At the end of that post I commented: “Share love! And give hate a pitiful box office.” Well my friends, people spent Valentine’s Day weekend doing just that! The numbers from Melania’s third struggle-weekend are in, and show a further 62.3% fall at the box office, meaning Amazon and Jeff Bezos — who spent $40 million just for the privilege of distributing this film that defies the label “documentary” — are losing a lot of money. I love this storyline for everyone involved.
The first lady’s eponymous documentary continued to plummet on only its third weekend, suffering a 62.3-percent drop in attendance, according to data from IMDbPro.
This puts the project on pace to gross $15.4 million in total, nowhere near the $40 million that Jeff Bezos’ Amazon spent to acquire it and an additional $35 million to promote it. The documentary was directed by Brett Ratner, who has faced heat for his ties to Jeffrey Epstein and allegations of sexual misconduct.
Last week, as Melania logged an even higher 67-percent drop-off at the box office, Amazon MGM distribution chief Kevin Wilson insisted that the documentary’s “strong theatrical performance” was “a critical first moment that validates our holistic distribution strategy, building awareness, engagement, and provides momentum ahead of the film’s eventual debut on Prime Video.”
Amazon MGM has maintained that Melania will muster strong numbers on streaming to make up for its poor box office showing. The studio said it plans “to recoup some of the cost of the film when it streams on Prime Video through advertising and Prime signups,” though it has not yet announced a streaming release date.
“Together, theatrical and streaming represent two distinct value-creating moments that amplify the film’s overall impact,” Wilson said, adding that exit polls have shown interest in replaying the documentary on Amazon’s Prime Video as well as tuning in to the docuseries.
During her black carpet premiere at the Kennedy Center last month, the 55-year-old first lady teased that a docuseries would soon build on her vanity project.
“We are still producing it, and that will be completely new footage,” she told reporters at the time. “We have some scenes that are not in the movie. We will have in a few months a docuseries, so people will see much more documentary.”
As Variety pointed out, Amazon has deep enough pockets to afford massive losses on its Melania bet—so its goal wasn’t to make money.
“Whether or not people like it, the value of these movies is different for our business model. We’re getting a massive marketing campaign that’s being paid for before the film gets to streaming,” Wilson told the outlet in 2024. “If we can put these movies out theatrically and cover our P&A (print and advertising) costs, why wouldn’t we?”
It seems to me that Amazon is throwing word salads at the wall to see what sticks in their attempt to spin Melania’s dismal performance as a success. “Together, theatrical and streaming represent two distinct value-creating moments that amplify the film’s overall impact,” was an especially potent example of a sentence full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Basically, the Amazon machine is deploying all the PR tactics they have, when in reality numbers don’t lie and the numbers aren’t backing them up. And speaking of numbers, if Melania dropped by 67% in its second week, and by another 62.3% in its third, then, mathematically speaking, there’s a net negative contingency of “people” still going to see this thing, right? I’m confident that math checks out, and will gleefully keep repeating it.
What else… I got a kick out of the purported docuseries being “completely new footage!” from OUTTAKES. And that was before the first project bombed at the box office, so an Amazon exec may be having an uncomfortable meeting with Mel soon. What’s sticking in my craw most, though, is the suggestion that Amazon never intended to make money with Melania in the first place, the argument being that Jeff Bezos is so wealthy he could afford to make a move like that. Which is true. Pity he didn’t have that philanthropic feeling for The Washington Post.
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