Ticket sales data from the first weekend of screenings of the documentary "Melania," about First Lady Melania Trump, in Britain, reveal an embarrassing picture: empty theaters and virtually no sales.
The Daily Beast reported that the flagship Vue cinema location in Islington, London, sold just one ticket for the 3:10 p.m. screening and two tickets for the 6:00 p.m. showing. A similar picture emerged at an AMC theater in Orange County, California, which failed to sell a single ticket for Saturday evening's screening – evidence that the failure has crossed the Atlantic Ocean.
Amazon MGM Studios paid $40 million for worldwide distribution rights to the film – the highest sum ever paid for a documentary. An additional $35 million was allocated to marketing efforts. Total: $75 million, which the investment has failed to yield returns.
First Lady Melania Trump, the film's subject and also a senior producer, described it as "a private and uncensored look" at her life. Her advisors clarified that the film is "not political at all." President Donald Trump called the film "amazing." But despite all these efforts, theaters in more than 100 locations across Britain struggled to fill their seats.
At 28 planned screenings in Vue theaters in Blackburn, Castleford, and Hamilton, not a single ticket was sold. The Cineworld chain sold four tickets in Wandsworth and five in Broughton. "We received numerous emails about the film," said Tim Richards, CEO of Vue, adding that the chain screens every film approved by the British Board of Film Classification.
Analysts estimated that Amazon adopted a "four walls" strategy – meaning the studio paid upfront for the theaters to ensure wide distribution, regardless of how many tickets would sell. Amazon signaled it expects revenue from streaming the film, but has not yet announced a launch date on the Prime Video platform.
Director Brett Ratner, who has nearly disappeared entirely from cinema since 2017 when accusations of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment of at least seven women were raised against him, collaborated closely with the First Lady – even in selecting music for the trailer. He may be one of the reasons for the glaring failure.
Social media users also checked the film's sales and found similarly embarrassing data. Author and documentarian Greg Mitchell found that only 20 tickets had been sold across four screenings at local theaters in his residential area. Journalist Mike Rothschild shared screenshots of five tickets sold for Friday evening screenings at four Los Angeles theaters. At an Orange County theater, no tickets were sold at all.
In Jacksonville, Florida, commentator Travis Akers wrote on X that "not a single ticket sold" for one evening screening, and speculated that the Republican Party might later try to "inflate the numbers" through bulk ticket purchases.
Online reactions have been scathing. The Queerty website noted that users of the film review social media platform Letterboxd left insulting comments on the page for the 2020 film "Looking for Melania Trump" – which is unrelated to the new film. One called the new documentary "a 104-minute perfume commercial for 'gold-plated despair.'" Another user wrote, before the comment was deleted: "No one asked for this burning garbage."
