First Lady Melania’s New Film Has Biggest Opening Weekend for Documentary in a Decade: Report

Despite receiving some tough reviews from critics, first lady Melania Trump’s new film covering the 20 days leading up to the 2025 inauguration is so far the most successful documentary of the decade, at least judging by the opening weekend’s box office numbers. Mrs. Trump worked with Amazon MGM Studios on the film, titled “Melania,” which was released in theaters on Friday. Before President Trump was sworn in last year, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos reportedly paid $40 million for the global licensing rights to Ms. Trump’s documentary — 70 percent of which reportedly went directly to her. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the studio then spent $35 million on marketing the movie, an exorbitant sum compared to other marketing budgets for documentary films. Those investments seem to be paying off, however. The Hollywood Reporter estimates in a report released Saturday that the film will make $8 million on its opening weekend, despite projections that it would flop. Such a sum would give the film the most successful opening weekend of any documentary of the last decade. Mrs. Trump’s film was expected to bring in just $5 million from more than 1,700 theaters domestically. The success of the film is reportedly being driven, unsurprisingly, by Mr. Trump’s own core political supporters, based on demographics reviewed by the Hollywood Reporter. Women over the age of 55 made up 72 percent of ticketholders, while 78 percent of all tickets were sold to those over the age of 55. Despite the better-than-expected ticket sales, critics are not being kind to the first lady. Film critic Frank Scheck writes for the Hollywood Reporter that the film lavishes praise on Mrs. Trump to an extreme degree, even for a documentary made by the star herself. “This is a film that fawns so lavishly over its subject that you feel downright unpatriotic not gushing over it,” Mr. Scheck writes. “Before the film ends with onscreen graphics listing Melania’s achievements as first lady in such laudatory fashion that North Korea would blush, she’s shown posing for her official portrait. Doing her best to look both sexy and authoritative, she seems most in her element.”On the sites that track reviews, Mrs. Trump has also not been spared. Rotten Tomatoes has the film at a mere 10 percent on its “tomatometer.”“Melania: The Movie appears keener on inducing narcolepsy in its viewers than energising them into massed marching. Triumph of the Dull, perhaps,” the Irish Times review, which is included on Rotten Tomatoes, reads.The New York Times had a less vicious take on the movie, saying Mrs. Trump’s film gave at least some insight into the elusive first lady. “More striking, though, is her fastidious attention to detail when it comes to how she appears,” the Times writes. “Her gaze never looks more intensely focused than when she’s posing before a mirror, checking all the angles with near-clinical detachment.”The film’s director, Brett Ratner, in hindsight, may not be seen as the ideal director for Mrs. Trump, however. After being accused by multiple women of sexual assault in 2017, he largely has not been working. If this was meant to be his foray back into Hollywood, then his presence in the latest release of the Epstein files is sure to blunt that momentum. Buried in the thousands of documents which were released by the Justice Department in recent days, is a photo of Mr. Ratner with Jeffrey Epstein and two young females whose faces are redacted by the DOJ. There is no identifying information about the females, who may or may not be underage, in the files. Mr. Trump himself was effusive in his praise for the movie. He hosted Apple chief executive Tim Cook and Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy at the White House for a screening last weekend, before a grander showing at the Kennedy Center last week. Everyone from Speaker Mike Johnson to a number of conservative influencers were invited to celebrate Mrs. Trump’s movie. He went so far as to use his relatively dormant X account, with more than 100 million followers, to promote the movie multiple times. His Truth Social account, which is far more active, has just one-tenth of the following that he does on X. What few moments there are in the film between Ms. Trump and her husband, it is clear that she is no passive observer. In one scene cut into the movie’s trailer, Mrs. Trump can be seen helping Mr. Trump prepare for his inaugural remarks. The clip shows Mr. Trump working on a section of the address where he talks about global peace. As he is practicing the speech, Mr. Trump describes himself as a “peacemaker,” only for his wife to cut in sharply and say: “Peacemaker and unifier.”

First Lady Melania’s New Film Has Biggest Opening Weekend for Documentary in a Decade: Report

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