‘Melania’ Arrives With Strong Box Office Showing for a Documentary

Amazon backed up the Brink’s trucks for the vanity film, resulting in weekend ticket sales of about $7 million in North America, enough for third place.

Amazon’s gold-plated rollout for Melania Trump’s documentary resulted in opening-weekend ticket sales of $7 million in the United States and Canada, box office analysts said on Sunday. That gave “Melania” the best start for a documentary (excluding concert films) in 14 years.

It was a face-saving result for the first lady — last week, ticket sales were pacing at about $5 million — but not for Amazon, which spent an exorbitant $75 million to buy distribution rights to “Melania” and market its release in 1,778 domestic theaters. Theater owners keep roughly 50 percent of ticket sales, meaning that Amazon will end the weekend with about $3.5 million to show for its investment.

On Saturday, analysts projected roughly $8 million in domestic ticket sales for the nearly two-hour film. The actual amount, $7 million, suggests that opening day was front loaded with Mrs. Trump’s fans. (Analysts projected the $8 million by collecting Friday sales data from various theater circuits, measuring presales for Saturday and Sunday and extrapolating from there.)

Even so, “Melania” had the best result for a wide-release documentary, excluding concert films, since 2012, when the nature film “Chimpanzee” arrived to $10.7 million, or about $15 million after adjusting for inflation, according to Comscore data. “Melania” placed third for the weekend at the North American box office. “Send Help,” a 20th Century Studios horror thriller, was No. 1, with about $20 million in ticket sales. “Iron Lung,” a low-budget horror-science fiction mash-up that was independently distributed, was second, selling an estimated $18 million in tickets.

“Melania” was also released in 1,600 theaters overseas. Amazon declined to provide an estimate for international ticket sales on Sunday. Box office analysts said turnout was poor.

In the United States and Canada, theaters in rural areas contributed roughly 46 percent of the opening-weekend total for “Melania,” far higher than is typical for a film opening, according to EntTelligence, a research firm. Republican counties also overperformed, contributing about 53 percent of ticket sales, according to EntTelligence. Top states included Florida, Texas and Arizona.

The audience was overwhelmingly female (70 percent) and over the age of 55, according to Amazon.

At the Cinemark Valley View and XD in Cleveland on Friday, the audience for a “Melania” screening included a couple of buses worth of people from a nearby senior center. “It was a nice fluff piece,” Gordon Wilson, 80, said as he exited. Another Cleveland attendee, Anita Dloniak, 68, chuckled when she heard that some of the other ticket buyers called the film propaganda. “What did they think it was going to be?” she said.

Bob Schmidt, 60, went to see “Melania” at the Alamo Drafthouse on Staten Island on Friday. He rarely goes to the movies anymore, he said, but he bought a ticket to send a message to what he called the liberal movie industry. “I wanted to see this movie kick Hollywood’s ass,” Mr. Schmidt said. (During the screening, attendees erupted in applause during the scene when President Trump is sworn in. Someone shouted, “Trump 2028!”)

Amazon, of course, can also monetize “Melania” on its Prime streaming service, where the film is expected to become available in three to four weeks. But the company’s spending on the documentary was so extreme — it paid $40 million for the rights alone, about $26 million more than the next closest bidder — that a question will linger: Was this all just an attempt for Amazon to ingratiate itself with President Trump?

“This is a political investment, not a for-profit movie venture,” said David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes an influential newsletter on box office numbers.

Amazon’s lavish spending on “Melania” coincided with 16,000 layoffs at the company (on top of the 14,000 corporate employees it expunged in October), adding to a bumpy moment for the company’s brand.

In recent weeks, Amazon had repeatedly said that it bought Mrs. Trump’s documentary “for one reason and one reason only — because we think customers are going to love it.” In a separate statement on Sunday, Amazon said it was “very encouraged” by domestic ticket sales, calling the theatrical release “an important first step in what we see as a long-tail life cycle for both the film and the forthcoming docuseries.” (The rights to “Melania” came with an accompanying series, also about Mrs. Trump, that is expected to appear on Prime Video this year.)

People who went to see “Melania” gave it an A grade in CinemaScore exit polls. “Elegant, informative and beautifully done” was Lynn Suter’s review, as she left a sold-out Friday showing of the film near Jupiter, Fla. Ms. Suter, a member of Conservative Gals of Palm Beach County, a Facebook group with more than 400 members, added that she intended to “tell everyone to go see it.”

But critics savaged Mrs. Trump’s affectionate self-portrait. (She produced the film and had editorial control.) “It’s so orchestrated and airbrushed and stage-managed that it barely rises to the level of a shameless infomercial,” wrote Owen Gleiberman, chief movie critic for Variety, the Hollywood trade publication.

“Melania” was directed by Brett Ratner (“Money Talks”), who has not directed a movie since 2017, when six women accused him of sexual misconduct. (He has denied those accusations.) Rolling Stone reported that two-thirds of the film’s New York crew asked that their names not be added to the film’s credits. Those who agreed to be credited included Jeff Cronenweth, an Oscar-nominated cinematographer (“The Social Network,” “Gone Girl”).

Cameras rolled on Mrs. Trump for 20 days last January, culminating in President Trump’s second inauguration.

Michael Adema, 32, who identified himself as a Democrat, said he bought a ticket to a 9:30 p.m. showing of “Melania” at the AMC Century City in Los Angeles because he was interested in Mrs. Trump’s life story.

“Whether you see Melania Trump as the good girl or the bad girl, she’s somebody whom I believe is inspiring people to think in a particular way, and you can deny it or you can accept it,” Mr. Adema said.

Outside of concert films, documentaries have always been a niche box office draw. Over the past 15 years, only three documentaries have collected more than $20 million in North America: “Chimpanzee,” a nature film; “2016: Obama’s America,” a partisan takedown of President Obama; and Morgan Neville’s “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” about the host of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”

No documentary has ever cost as much as “Melania,” though. To grasp just how uncustomary Amazon’s spending on “Melania” is, consider that Focus Features spent an estimated $12 million, or $15.5 million after adjusting for inflation, on “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” release rights and marketing.

Every so often, a documentary hits a mass cultural nerve. “Fahrenheit 9/11,” Michael Moore’s flame-throwing film about George W. Bush and the 2001 terrorist strike on the United States, holds the record for the best-selling documentary in history. It collected $119 million in North America in 2004, or $208 million in current dollars.

Ida Lieszkovszky, Michaela Towfighi, Nicole Danna and Emmanuel Morgan contributed reporting.

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