Melania Documentary Shocks Box Office Expectations

Adriana Stone 0 1 min read

Melania Documentary Shocks Box Office Expectations

The critics piled on. The theaters filled. The story just took a turn.

Right before opening weekend, a lot of outlets were already writing Melania off. Headlines were blunt. The tone was dismissive. But ticket sales told a different story.

The Hollywood Reporter: “Propaganda Doc”
The Atlantic: “A disgrace”
The Guardian: “Pure endless hell”
The Daily Beast: “Terrible”
The Independent: “To call Melania vapid would do a disservice to plumes of vape smoke”

Opening-weekend estimates climbed as the weekend arrived. The New York Times and other outlets pegged U.S. and Canada ticket sales around $8.1 million. That would make Melania the best opening for a documentary (non-concert) in roughly 14 years.

Amazon paid big for the film. Reports say the streaming giant spent about $75 million on distribution and marketing. Theater owners keep nearly half of ticket sales, so Amazon’s weekend return looked much smaller than the headlines about the purchase price.

In pure box-office placement, Hollywood Reporter noted the film finished around No. 3 for the weekend, behind two other new releases. That’s impressive for a limited roll-out documentary with a political figure at its center.

Demographics matter. The crowd skewed older. Reports put the 55-plus set at roughly 72–78 percent of early audiences. The film appears to be galvanizing conservative viewers in the South and south-central U.S., especially older women.

The movie focuses on Melania Trump’s role in the run-up to her husband’s second inauguration and the preparations she oversaw. After its limited theatrical push, the plan is to stream it exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.

Call it a surprise. Call it a comeback. Call it a sign that critics don’t always predict audience behavior. Whatever you call it, Melania’s opening weekend proved one thing: pundit certainty and paying customers don’t always line up.

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