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
[3][7][8][1]

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.