MW Amazon's 'Melania' documentary is opening in 2,000 theaters. Will MAGA fill those seats?

By Lukas I. Alpert

The wide theatrical release is unusual for documentaries. Amazon is hoping it will prove a solid draw in the middle of the country, where such films often don't do well.

First lady Melania Trump in a still image from an upcoming documentary focusing on her planning the inauguration party for her husband, President Donald Trump, last year.

Is a glamorized look at Melania Trump planning her husband's inauguration worth $75 million? Amazon sure hopes so.

"Melania" - a documentary that follows the first lady around during the 20 days leading up to President Donald Trump's inauguration last year - will open in some 2,000 U.S. theaters on Friday, according to an adviser to Melania Trump. The odds of it being a success, however, are steep.

Amazon MGM Studios paid an eye-popping $40 million to acquire the film - a record sum for a documentary - and has reportedly spent $35 million more to promote it. That sets a high bar for the studio to make its money back, particularly because documentaries are a genre that typically does not generate box-office hits.

The studio has bet on opening the film in wide release - also unusual for documentaries - focusing in markets where Donald Trump is popular, in the hope that enough MAGA diehards will show up to at least recoup its investment.

Many industry insiders have been amazed by the cost, with some dismissing the film as little more than a vanity project for the first lady - and an effort by Jeff Bezos's Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) to curry favor with the president.

Many have also raised eyebrows over the wide theatrical release, as opposed to a focus on Amazon's streaming platform, where the film is likely to find most of its audience. The studio says it will release the documentary on streaming at a later, as yet unspecified, date.

The National Research Group, a market-research firm, forecasts that the film will pull in $5 million in its opening weekend, according to a report by Puck. That would be a solid draw for a typical documentary but still far short of what would be needed for the film to eventually break even.

Amazon has so far not said exactly how widely it expects to release the film in theaters, but Marc Beckman, an adviser to Melania Trump who helped negotiate the sale of the film, said he was told it would be shown in roughly 2,000 theaters in the U.S. and a total of 5,000 worldwide.

"It was negotiated as part of the deal that it would have a theatrical release first," he said. "When MGM saw the film, they felt it really revealed more than they were expecting, so they chose to put it in more theaters."

Historically, documentaries have rarely generated major box-office success, with hits like "Fahrenheit 9/11," "Michael Jackson's This is It," and "March of the Penguins" considered once-in-a-decade events.

"Usually documentaries play only in two markets - New York and L.A.," said Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder of Box Office Theory. "But given the subject matter, it makes sense for them to target this film more to Middle America."

Documentaries are also often made by small independent producers who may not have the wherewithal to finance a wide release - a problem Amazon does not have, Robbins noted.

Not that "Melania" is skipping the biggest markets. According to ticket-sales websites, it is opening in 10 theaters in New York City and more than a dozen in Los Angeles. Both markets have also been the target of pricey billboard ad campaigns.

The film is being screened a day earlier, on Jan. 29, to select audiences in 20 cities around the world, including in New York and Los Angeles and at the recently rebranded Trump Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

On Wednesday, Melania Trump will ring the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange as part of the film's marketing push.

But if ticket presales are any indicator, the film is not yet attracting much interest. With less than a week to go, barely any tickets have sold for showings in theaters in New York and L.A. Theaters in places like Dallas and Wichita, Kan., have seen more interest, suggesting the film's theatrical success will ride on markets where Trump is more popular.

A spokesman for Regal Cinemas, the second-largest theater operator in the U.S., said it was planning to exhibit the film in 300 of its roughly 400 theaters.

"We will focus on appropriate markets and maybe less so on places like Portland, Ore., or San Francisco," the spokesman said.

The film was directed by Brett Ratner, once a top Hollywood filmmaker who was behind the highly successful "Rush Hour" franchise but who hasn't made a feature film since in 2017, when his career was derailed by accusations of sexual misconduct. He denied the allegations at the time.

Late last year, Ratner's name emerged in reports that Paramount Skydance Corp. (PSKY) had agreed to distribute a possible "Rush Hour 4," after being pressed by President Trump.

Beckman said "Melania" isn't inherently political and argued that it will attract people who want an inside look at a moment in history or who are interested in Melania Trump's fashion sense, or even young women who are inspired by "a woman who prioritizes her family, while juggling many other responsibilities."

-Lukas I. Alpert

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January 26, 2026 13:09 ET (18:09 GMT)

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