Screenings Of Melania Canceled In Minnesota Due To No Sales

• The documentary Melania, for which Amazon MGM reportedly paid $40 million and spent an additional $35 million on marketing, is projected to earn only around $5 million at the box office during its opening weekend.
• This projected box office figure places it in a similar range to other niche documentaries like After Death and Am I Racist?, which had comparable opening weekend takes.
• Analysis of opening-day ticket sales indicates a generally muted response across the US, with some screenings having very few tickets sold, though sales are stronger in more conservative regions. Meanwhile, it has been reported that screenings at the Plymouth Grand 15 theater in Minnesota appear to have been cancelled.
• Donald Trump commented on the weak ticket sales, attributing them to the post-Covid theatre business and suggesting the film would perform better via streaming, as it will later be available on Prime Video.
• International sales are also soft, with only one or two tickets sold for initial screenings in the UK, and the film’s theatrical run in South Africa has been pulled due to ‘political reasons’.

Despite this, Melania announced at her premiere at the Kennedy Center last night that there is a *docu-series* which will be released in a “few months” regardless of whether there is a demand for such a thing or not. Seems like overkill to me but whatever, right? Meanwhile, more reviews are pouring in, and yes, we were right about why there were not sneak previews for critics: the reviews are scathing. Daily Beast:

Were it not for scattered laughter-inducing scenes—most of which, I would gather, were not intentionally humorous—I would rule it an abomination. For my $20 ticket (robbery!) and a misery-inducing walk to the theater in the bone-chilling cold, if not a t-shirt, I got some chuckles in return. And, I guess, a war story.

Of course, everyone knew the film, directed for an obscene amount of money by notorious sex pest Brett Ratner, was going to be bad. It’s the specific kind of bad I was on a fact-finding mission for.

Melania is a level of insipid propaganda that almost resists review; it’s so expected and utterly pointless.

“Everyone wants to know, so here it is,” she says at the top, teasing that cameras will follow her for the 20 days leading up to the inauguration, revealing her “transition from private citizen to first lady…again.” All the film really reveals is that Melania was, indeed, alive those 20 days, and even walked from room to room and, in some cases, from the car to a private jet.

We see her meet people and attend events, but we rarely get a sense of how she feels about any of it, her face infamously expressionless in every interaction, as if it’s been cast in a kiln. Instead, each scene is narrated by Melania, with AP U.S. History textbook-like explanations of historical landmarks and traditions and innocuous phrases about her desire to be “an inspiring force.”

You know those videos that play on airplanes before takeoff that are like, “Here at United Airlines, we believe travel means adventure and adventure means family and family means synergy,” and then different employees smile at the camera while showing you how they do their jobs? This movie was the Trumpian version, a corporate advertorial for the office of the First Lady, to justify (defend? clarify?) her seeming useleness to the American people.

The writer of this article states there were about 12 people in the theater, which seats 200. Be that as it may, we are in for more of the same. And if the documentary brings in $1 million, Amazon will be happy. At $5 million, they’ll be very happy and at $8 million they’ll be ecstatic. And as for the other $68 – $70 million dollars, they’ll be philosophical, we guess.

Just think, for the same amount of money you could have had Leonardo DiCaprio star in something entertaining. But you’ve got Melania for $75 million, gushing about her *achievements* such that a North Korean TV anchor would blush. Oy.