Amazon’s “Melania” documentary just took a nosedive that would make any studio executive sweat. After what they spun as a decent opening weekend, the film plummeted 67% to pull in just $2.37 million in its second frame. That’s not the kind of drop you want to see when you’ve got $75 million riding on a project.
The numbers tell a brutal story. The doc has made $13.5 million total, nearly all of it from US theaters. Amazon paid $40 million to acquire the thing and then dropped another $35 million on marketing. You don’t need to be a math genius to see this isn’t adding up to a theatrical profit.
The Optics Problem
Here’s where it gets interesting. Before the film even hit theaters, a former Amazon film exec went on record questioning whether the price tag could be explained by anything other than “currying favor” with the Trump administration or serving as “an outright bribe.” That’s not the kind of business commentary you want floating around your big release.
Sure, Super Bowl weekend is typically slow for movies. The weekend’s top film “Send Help” only dropped 47%. But “Melania” fell from third place to ninth on the charts. That’s not a Super Bowl dip, that’s a freefall.
Damage Control Mode
Amazon’s theatrical distribution head Kevin Wilson tried to put a positive spin on things with a statement about how “theatrical and streaming represent two distinct value creating moments.” Classic corporate speak for “yeah, theaters aren’t working out but wait until we dump this on Prime Video.”
The critic versus audience split is wild. Critics universally panned it, but somehow the film scored a 99% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The score seemed so suspicious that Rotten Tomatoes actually issued a statement confirming it was real. When a review aggregator has to defend its own technology against accusations of manipulation, something weird is happening.
The streaming play might salvage some value here, but it won’t erase the optics of a massive theatrical failure. Amazon clearly wanted this to be a prestige documentary event. Instead, they’re watching millions evaporate while questions about their motivations linger. When your own former executives are publicly questioning whether a film acquisition was politically motivated rather than commercially sound, you’ve got a problem that goes way beyond box office news.
