The documentary Melania, which was released by Amazon, brought in $7 million at the domestic box office during its opening weekend, the most significant position in terms of box office earnings by a non-music documentary in more than a decade.
According to data from Comscore, documentaries are not usually huge ticket sellers, and most releases in the past decade entered with a gross that was below $5 million, and earned less than $10 million to $20 million globally.
Documentaries and concert films by popular musical artists usually outperform these numbers due to their built-in fan bases.
However, Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” is the highest-grossing political documentary with an opening of $23.9 million. The film, released in 2004, also has the highest domestic collection of a political documentary of $119 million.
Kevin Wilson, Head of Domestic Theatrical Distribution at Amazon MGM Studios, said, “We’re very encouraged by the strong start and positive audience response, with early box office for ‘Melania’ exceeding our expectations. This momentum is an important first step in what we see as a long-tail lifecycle for both the film and the forthcoming docu-series, extending well beyond the theatrical window and into what we believe will be a significant run for both on our service.”
The tech giant, which owns the streaming platform Prime Video, estimated the Melania Trump documentary to cost it approximately $40 million, and it is reported that the firm has spent approximately a very similar sum of money advertising the film.
Women and moviegoers who are more than 55 years old were the main buyers of tickets, and both constituted 70 percent or above of the tickets. EntTelligence data reported that 46 percent of the total box office grosses were made up of rural theaters.
Usually, in regions with a population of less than 500,000 inhabitants, these theaters contribute approximately 30 percent of the total movie ticket sales. EntTelligence projects that 600,000 moviegoers saw the film over the weekend.
Although the review websites have resulted in strong audience reviews, such as Rotten Tomatoes’ “Popcornmeter”, which remains at 99 percent from more than 500 users, with critical responses were vile.
“Melania” has an 11 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 19 reviews, with several critics calling the documentary “propaganda.”
