Amazon’s Melania Trump documentary overperformed at the box office, but Amazon has a long way to go before breaking even.
To the casual Hollywood observer, « Melania », Amazon MGM Studios’ documentary on first lady Melania Trump, looks like a hit. But looks can be deceiving.
Brett Ratner’s all-access glimpse at the first lady in the days leading up to the 2025 inauguration of President Donald Trump took in $7 million at the box office this weekend despite dismal reviews (it currently holds a 10% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes). The $7 million take is the biggest opening for a non-concert, non-fiction movie in a decade.
But delving deeper into the numbers, it’s clear that « Melania » faces an uphill battle to profitability.Amazon is $75 million in the hole for ‘Melania’
At first glance, the $7 million opening looks impressive in the context of how other popular docs have fared at the box office.
Questlove’s 2021 Oscar-winning documentary « Summer of Soul », for example, broke the record for the biggest Sundance buy ever for a doc when it was sold to Searchlight/Hulu for $15 million. And that film only has a lifetime gross of $3.7 million.
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However, Amazon bought « Melania » for $40 million ($28 million of which was pocketed by the first lady, according to The Wall Street Journal) and spent an additional $35 million on marketing the film, meaning it’s $75 million in the hole and could face a long road to profitability.
This is an astronomical amount, according to veteran documentary film producers and industry insiders, who told Business Insider that documentaries released by streamers typically get between about $500,000 and $2 million on marketing to spend off-platform (this doesn’t count award-season contenders — those get spends in the tens of millions).
