how did the melania movie do in the box office
The Melania documentary had a modest but very attention‑grabbing box office run, landing around $7.2 million worldwide so far , almost all of it from the U.S. and Canada.
Quick Scoop
- Opened to about $7 million in its first weekend in North America, including roughly $2.9 million on opening day.
- Debuted at No. 3 at the U.S. box office , behind the thriller Send Help and the indie horror Iron Lung.
- Total so far: about $7.16 million domestic and $78,000 international , for roughly $7.24 million worldwide.
- It’s strong “for a political documentary” but very small by mainstream movie standards, especially given its large marketing push.
Mini snapshot table
| Metric | Number |
|---|---|
| Opening weekend (U.S./Canada) | About $7.0M–$7.16M |
| First day gross | About $2.9M |
| Total domestic gross (so far) | About $7.16M |
| Total international gross (so far) | About $78K |
| Worldwide total (so far) | About $7.2M |
| U.S. opening theater count | ≈1,700–1,778 theaters |
| Opening weekend box office rank (U.S.) | No. 3 |
How good is that performance?
From a documentary perspective, the opening is objectively on the high side:
- Trade coverage called it the biggest opening for a non‑fiction film in about a decade.
- Around 600,000 people were estimated to have seen it in U.S. theaters during opening weekend.
But in a wider box‑office context, many analysts and commentators frame it as underwhelming or a flop :
- The movie had a very wide release and a marketing push “in the tens of millions” , more like a mid‑budget studio film than a niche doc.
- Box‑office tracking shows that its entire gross basically equals its opening weekend , indicating very weak legs (repeat business and word of mouth did not take off).
- Opinion pieces argue that media spin is overselling a performance that is financially poor relative to the scale of the rollout and political hype.
Who actually showed up?
Audience data paints a pretty unusual crowd profile for a political documentary:
- Roughly 70–72% of the audience was female.
- About 78% of ticket buyers were 55 or older , skewing heavily toward older moviegoers.
- Strongest markets were Dallas, Tampa, Phoenix, Atlanta, and West Palm Beach —all in states Trump won in 2024.
Interestingly, the critical vs audience split is extreme:
- Critics gave the film a very low score (around 6% on Rotten Tomatoes).
- Audiences, however, rated it extremely high: A CinemaScore and about a 98% Rotten Tomatoes audience rating , one of the best among the weekend’s releases.
How are forums and commentators talking about it?
Online discussion and opinion pieces are much more cynical than the studio framing:
- Some box‑office commentary sites outright label it a box office flop , criticizing outlets that treat the opening as a clear “success.”
- On forums, users point out how PR headlines emphasize “better than expected” while the raw numbers remain low for a film with this level of visibility and controversy.
- There’s also pushback over the director’s past allegations and the political nature of the subject, which for some viewers is a reason to skip it entirely.
A typical forum vibe is something like:
“Technically big for a documentary, but if this is what you get after a huge marketing blitz and a wall‑to‑wall news cycle, it’s not the win they’re selling it as.”
Bottom line
- Did it bomb? For a standard commercial release with a big marketing spend, the numbers look weak and likely unprofitable.
- Was it huge for a doc? Yes: around $7M opening and No. 3 at the box office is high for a political documentary , and it briefly led non‑fiction openings for the past decade.
So the fairest reading is: headline‑grabbing for a documentary, but disappointing when measured against the hype, the cost, and the political spotlight around Melania Trump.
Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.