After spending $40 million to acquire the rights to “MELANIA,” a film about President Donald Trump’s third wife and first lady of the United States, and another $35 million on the film’s marketing and release, Amazon’s project is projected to flop. Contrary to the president’s claims, there are no sold-out screenings or lines around the block. There are no viral clips, no TikTok reactions from red hat superfans and no manufactured outrage that turns into free publicity. The film is opening to near-empty theaters not because critics hate it, or because liberals are boycotting it, but because MAGA voters simply do not care.
Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, appears to have believed that overpaying wildly for a lavish documentary about Melania Trump, promoting it aggressively and rolling out the black carpet at the Kennedy Center would curry favor with Trumpworld. (To be fair, after sitting on the dais at the president’s inauguration in January 2025 and donating a million dollars to the festivities, his company secured a billion-dollar cloud computing contract with the administration.) But MAGA is not moved by “cinematic viewing.” It only shows up for grievance theater.
