High grossing (maybe the content) and no ticket sells. I suspect that someone is buying the tickets like Musk buying his own cars to get the refund from the government scam.

Someone's super PAC buying them up like the shitty conservative "Bestseller" books. One day someone finds 5,000 copies in a shed somewhere.

And I don't believe the numbers anyway.

Oh well, forty million is a lot to make up before this film can be considered profitable.

million for marketing.

All these old conservative folks have money to waste on a trashy movie, just to make their cult leader happy.

so saying it had the best opening for a doc in ten years isn't saying much lol

and considering about 25% of the country literally consider her husband a god, only turning out 8 million dollars from a cult isn't saying much either.

Movies that make 10 to 15 million. But they documentaries in recent years but they cost at most 2 million to make. What's unbelievable is this cost north of 75 million. It will need to bring in 150 million to earn a profit. I get Bezo and RW cult gonna snap up tickets and maybe even watch it this week. But this will need to make 8 million for like 20 weeks in a row to earn its money. No one think this happens. Within a week this slinks off most movie theaters play lists and hangs around only in the redest of cities. If thus makes the normal Desuza film, it heads off around 15 million.

works something like the RWNJ “bestseller” book scam:

https://nomadicpolitics.blogspot.com/2014/11/cooking-books-how-conservative-best.html?m=1

They have reviews of it in top news, like it’s news.

It cost Amazon MGM $70 million to make and release this film. Hollywood doesn't consider a film successful unless it takes in at least twice what it cost to make...so, let's say this movie does $25 million this weekend, shrinks to $2MM-$3MM next weekend and leaves theaters after that. $28 million on a $70 million investment is a bomb big enough to drop on the enemy.

And, as others have noted, what exactly is the "tickets bought online" to "butts in those seats" ratio? Normally it would pretty much be 1:1. Any significant deviation from that indicates attempts to manipulate the numbers.

Like book sales?

like it's their Barbie movie

That film won the Oscar for best documentary of 1972. It contains excellent photography of insect colonies. The immensity of insect inhabitation in our world is well presented. The "pseudo" element involves a narrator (claiming to be an expert) proclaiming that his warnings of humankind's impending annihilation at the mandibles of insects have been ignored. That aspect of the film is like an April Fool prank, but it is entertaining its own way.

I would rather take my chances with insects than with the Trump regime.

ByPaul Tassi
Jan 31, 2026, 09:28am EST

No doubt Melania will prove to be one of the most bizarre stories in film in 2026, the documentary about the First Lady that was purchased by Amazon for an exorbitant fee, $40 to acquire and $35 million to market. Now, the movie is live, and the gap between critic scores and audience scores is vast. Assuming you believe those audience scores are real, however.

As it stands, Melania has a 6% on Rotten Tomatoes, meaning only 6% of critics liked the film. In this case, that’s…one of them. Even more impressively, Melania has a 6 on Metacritic, but that’s a 6/100, because that’s a site that takes into account the actual review scores, not just a thumbs up or thumbs down ...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2026/01/31/melania-lands-single-digit-rotten-tomatoes-metacritic-scores/

Anthony Robledo
USA TODAY
Updated Jan. 30, 2026, 7:10 p.m. ET

... "She talks about a reverence for the military, but Ratner doesn't show her conversations with soldiers. It's a strange filmmaking choice for a documentary, though maybe one that's by design."

Variety's review echoes this sentiment, arguing that the documentary "never comes to life" and is far too "orchestrated and airbrushed and stage-managed that it barely rises to the level of a shameless infomercial." ...

... The Atlantic's review emphasized that the documentary is ultimately lackluster, quipping, "Ratner seems desperate to find action, but there is none. The pace is stultifying."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2026/01/30/melania-trump-movie-reviews-rotten-tomatoes-score/88438844007/

being sold in some venues, and fewer than a dozen people actually physically present in others, half of whom appeared to be critics.

Stack fifty bucks on top of the ticket price, and it adds up...