The new documentary about First Lady Melania Trump will come nowhere near to recouping the $40 million Amazon MGM paid for it, according to an analysis of theater sales for its opening weekend.
Amazon reportedly spent an additional $35 million to market the film, which is being released nationwide in the U.S. and in a number of international markets Friday.
Deadline reported that Melania has made close to $1 million in pre-sales, which puts it on course for a $5 million box office take on its opening weekend.
That would put it in the same ballpark as the Christian production company Angel Studios’ documentary After Death, which made $5 million when it opened in 2023, and right-wing commentator Matt Walsh’s Am I Racist?, which opened to $4.5 million in 2024.
An analysis of opening-day ticket sales suggests a muted — though not nonexistent — response nationwide. At the first screening at the AMC in The Grove mall in Los Angeles, 15 of 132 seats had been sold as of Thursday afternoon. At the Alamo Drafthouse in New York City, just two of 31 seats had sold for the afternoon screening, but 14 had sold for an evening screening.
Ticket sales are much stronger in more conservative areas, including Orange County, California, Houston, Texas and Miami, Florida. Research by Wired magazine found that only two screenings in the U.S. were completely sold out: one at an AMC in Independence, Missouri, and one at an AMC in Vero Beach, Florida. Vero Beach is around an hour’s drive north of the president’s residence at Mar-a-Lago.
The publication also reported that Melania screenings at the Mann Plymouth Grand 15 theater in Minnesota appear to have been canceled. The theater is located in Hennepin County, Minnesota, an area that is experiencing unrest after the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Speaking to reporters at the film’s premiere at the Kennedy Center on Thursday, President Donald Trump played down the weak ticket sales.
“It’s a very tough business in theaters selling movie tickets after Covid,” he said.
“I think this will do unbelievable — streaming and everything. Theaters are a different world.”
Melania will stream on Prime Video at a later date.
The project marks the American filmmaking return of Rush Hour director Brett Ratner, who moved to Israel following multiple sexual misconduct allegations in 2017.
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According to a Rolling Stone report, two-thirds of crew members asked to have their names removed from the film’s credits. One crew member described Ratner as “slimy” and Melania as “boring,” but “totally nice,” the magazine reported.
International sales do not look likely to add much to Melania’s total box office take. Tim Richards, the chief executive of Vue, one of the U.K.’s biggest movie theater operators, revealed that ticket sales, so far, have been “soft.”
According to The Guardian, just one ticket has been sold for the first afternoon screening Friday at Vue’s flagship Islington branch in London, while two have been booked for the 6 pm showing.
Meanwhile, in South Africa, distributor Filmfinity has cancelled the film’s theatrical run for what it called “political reasons.”
