Amazon MGM Studios
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Amazon MGM Studios really, really wanted it to be the weekend of Melania — a logical enough hope, considering they hurled a Titanic-sized $75 million at the project ($40 million for the rights and $35 million in marketing efforts to convince people to voluntarily watch). With that kind of money, you’d almost expect a parade, or at least a standing-room-only crowd. Instead, as the ice thaws in Dallas, so do theater seats, apparently.
What we have here is the world’s most expensive game of musical chairs, minus the music or the players. Picture a documentary so manufactured — and so lavishly produced— it launches in Dallas-Fort Worth theaters with the energy of a Tuesday morning Zoom call.
But it was a Friday afternoon, and we were curious about what the screening attendance would look like throughout the weekend. There’s a chance these rooms filled up at the last minute, sure, but audiences across the country aren’t turning out, so take with that what you will. Much like our own findings, the Houston Chronicle noticed higher attendance in earlier showings across the state.
Here’s what we observed at theaters in North Texas:
Collin County: In a place known for voting reliably red, Saturday’s 7:10 p.m. Melania showing at Cinemark Allen 16 had just two seats claimed as of Friday — too few for a polite game of chess, too many for an impromptu therapy session. The 10 p.m. showing? Still waiting for that first brave soul when we looked. Yet earlier slots did hover around the 20-40% full mark, and on a decent Friday afternoon, you might even see half the room occupied.
West Plano, Same Story: The 7:10 p.m. showing on Saturday: about 30% in a 130-seat auditorium. Friday’s earlier shows in smaller houses? Up to 65-70%. But come Saturday night, you could practice your stand-up routine to a crowd too small (and too disinterested) to heckle.
AMC NorthPark 15: Famously a magnet for crowds. And yet, Melania on Saturday evening had roughly 30% of seats claimed when we looked. Forget viral sensation — think “limited time only” Tupperware party.
Over at Alamo Drafthouse in Lake Highlands, the venue best known for rowdy sell-outs, the doc was pulling just four souls for the 7 p.m. show in a 32-seat theater. You could introduce them all by first name before the opening credits.
So, is it a total wipeout? Not quite — in Friday matinees across Denton and Plano, a few rooms came close to the halfway mark. If you squint and ignore the cavernous empty spaces, you could almost call it lively… almost. But Melania seldom played the big rooms and seldom got the big crowds, especially with juggernauts like the newly-released Send Help and last week’s box-office champions, Mercy and Avatar: Fire and Ash, hogging the real estate and ticket buyers.
While seeing another movie at AMC Grapevine Mills, we also popped into a Saturday afternoon screening before the movie began to see for ourselves. We’d describe the audience as “sparse.”
Melania opened with $7 million in ticket sales, and though that is considered a feat for a documentary film (aside from concert films, the movie had the largest opening weekend for a doc in 14 years), given its $75 million budget, it’s absolutely within the bounds of being dubbed a flop.
To add drama, director Brett Ratner brings his own baggage. Not only was he captured in a photograph among the recently released Epstein files — a disclosure doing nothing to quiet the internet’s collective side-eye — but several outlets refused to review the film, a rare occurrence only slightly less notable than the director’s return after, well, a mountain of #MeToo allegations. The studio didn’t screen the documentary for local critics.
Which brings us to what critics have said. As of publication, the film has a critics’ score of a measly 8% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 25 reviews. Here’s what some of them said:
- Independent (UK): “To call Melania vapid would do a disservice to the plumes of florid vape smoke that linger around British teenagers.”
- The Atlantic: “Ratner seems desperate to find action, but there is none. The pace is stultifying.”
- Variety: “A documentary that never comes to life… so orchestrated and airbrushed and stage-managed that it barely rises to the level of a shameless infomercial.”
- Guardian: “The fun’s not infectious and the guests are a nightmare, and two hours of Melania feels like pure, endless hell.”
- London Evening Standard (the lone ray of sunshine): “If you take this film for what it is, Melania’s own, curated take on herself… there’s human warmth there under the cheekbones and the slanting feline eyes.” (Move over, Shakespeare.)
So, what’s the takeaway? Melania is not a box office Titanic giant success — it’s more like a luxury yacht that sailed out with Dock 12’s birthday party crowd instead of Beyoncé’s tour entourage. Hindered by few showtimes (and even fewer interested viewers), dogged by controversy and subject to winter weather even the studio’s millions couldn’t melt, it’s a jumbled spectacle worthy of its own additional documentary.
