Amazon’s ‘Melania’ documentary makes $7M on opening weekend

“Melania,” a documentary astir First Lady Melania Trump, is exceeding container bureau expectations, with Sunday estimates suggesting it volition marque $7.04 cardinal connected its opening weekend.

The documentary is coming successful 3rd wide for the weekend, down the Sam Raimi-directed thriller “Send Help” ($20 million) and “Iron Lung” ($17.8 million), a video crippled adaptation from YouTuber Mark Fischbach (better known arsenic Markiplier).

Amazon paid $40 cardinal to get “Melania” and is reportedly spending $35 cardinal to beforehand it. So adjacent though the documentary is outperforming pre-release estimates predicting a $3 to $5 cardinal opening weekend, it’s improbable to marque a nett successful theaters.

Amazon’s bid came successful $26 cardinal up of the adjacent highest bidder, Disney, starring critics to suggest the woody had little to bash with the film’s container bureau imaginable and much with winning implicit the Trump administration. Veteran movie enforcement Ted Hope, who worked astatine Amazon from 2015 to 2020, told The New York Times that the movie “has to beryllium the astir costly documentary ever made that didn’t impact euphony licensing.”

“How tin it not beryllium equated with currying favour oregon an outright bribe?” Hope said. “How tin that not beryllium the case?”

This is the archetypal movie directed by Brett Ratner since 2017, erstwhile multiple women accused him of intersexual harassment and misconduct. (Ratner has denied those accusations.) Rolling Stone reports that two-thirds of the film’s New York unit asked not to beryllium formally credited successful the film.

While Apple CEO Tim Cook attended a preview screening of “Melania” astatine the White House past play “Melania” was not screened successful beforehand for critics, and the consequent reviews person been brutal. The documentary presently sits astatine 7% connected reappraisal aggregator Metacritic, indicating “overwhelming dislike,” and at 10% connected Rotten Tomatoes.

New York Times movie professional Manohla Dargis described it arsenic “a precise circumscribed and cautiously stage-managed chronicle of Mrs. Trump’s day-to-day life” during the 20 days earlier President Trump’s 2025 inauguration.

In a statement, Amazon MGM’s caput of home theatrical organisation Kevin Wilson described this play arsenic “an important archetypal measurement successful what we spot arsenic a long-tail lifecycle for some the movie and the forthcoming docu-series,” which helium predicted volition person a “significant life” connected Amazon’s Prime streaming service.