With the "Melania" documentary - a $75 million Jeff Bezos bribe to Donald Trump - set to be released in theaters across America today, many reports are sharing that the film is already a flop outside the US.
The Guardian reports that there was exactly one ticket sold (!) for the first showing of the film in the UK, at the Sittingbourne’s Light cinema’s 34-seater screen. Twelve showings are scheduled at the theater for the film's week-long run, for which six tickets have been purchased so far. Yikes! The Guardian says there are similar dismal numbers at other theaters across the UK.
Buzzfeed reports similar abysmal sales for "Melania" at movie theaters across Europe.
In all of Scotland, just 20 tickets have been sold for the 1,916 seats available.
In Hamburg, Germany, a whopping two tickets have been sold at one theater. Practically no tickets sold in Berlin as well.
Similar empty theaters are being reported in Spain and Ireland.
Not surprisingly, ticket sakes are also practically nonexistent across Canada. A Vancouver resident reports that for the seven showings of "Melania" on its first day Friday, at every single one only two seats were taken - which were all bought by him so he could see how many tickets had been sold. People are also reporting empty theaters in Toronto and Montreal.
The Guardian notes that the film’s wide rollout in the UK as well as the dauntingly early or late start times have given rise to suspicions in the industry that distributor Amazon may be paying cinemas to play the film.
This is an uncommon practice known as four-walling, by which the distributor rents the “four walls” of the screen from the owner for a flat fee and keeps all box office coffers, while the cinema gets to keep all popcorn profits. Four-walling is usually the preserve of titles deemed too niche for distributors to risk acquiring, such as documentaries based on home videos, conspiracy theory films and pornography.
There are also reports that someone - perhaps Amazon? - is paying people $50 to watch the film in the US and that GOP-aligned groups are buying up blocks of seats to gin up opening box office numbers - even if nobody watches the film. So whatever the film's opening weekend numbers, we can expect them to be grossly inflated.
All I can say is that there's no amount of money you could pay me to watch this BS film.
UPDATE
A Reddit-led protest is trying to push an eight year old erotic thriller, Melania: Devourer of Men, to the top of Amazon’s sales charts to mess with Amazon search results for the Melania doc. The 2018 erotic thriller depicts the First Lady as a sexual monster. (HT Messaging Matters)
UPDATE 2
The Independen newspaper just published a review of the movie, and it's a one-star doozy:
To call Melania vapid would do a disservice to the plumes of florid vape smoke that linger around British teenagers. She calls herself a “mother, wife, daughter, friend”, yet is only depicted preening and scowling. Figures like Brigitte Macron and Queen Rania of Jordan appear to bolster Melania’s geopolitical credentials, yet time and again she returns to banal aphorisms. “Cherish your family and loved ones,” she implores audiences, who were, up until then, neglecting their family and despising their loved ones. Trump himself is an instantly more charismatic presence on screen. His scenes offer a relief from Melania’s mask of pure nothingness. Hitting cinemas as the streets of America remain filled with the angry and grieving – with the country on the verge of an irreparable schism – the vulgar, gilded lifestyle of the Trumps makes them look like Marie Antoinette skulking in her cake-filled chateau, or Hermann Göring’s staring up at his looted Monet.
UPDATE 3
More reviews are coming in for "Melania" and boy are they scathing, via Forbes.
The Amazon-backed “Melania” documentary is getting torched by critics—who were barred from attending the Thursday night premiere screening—with some calling it propaganda and criticizing Melania Trump for touting herself as an immigrant while the Trump administration conducts immigration raids.
In a one-star review, The Guardian critic Xan Brooks slammed “Melania” as a film that “doesn’t have a single redeeming quality,” comparing it to a “medieval tribute to placate the greedy king on his throne.” Brooks said the film offers few revelations about its subject, who “moves through the action like a listless automaton, talking constantly but saying nothing.”…
The Atlantic writer Sophie Gilbert called “Melania” a “disgrace,” criticizing Trump for profiting off the project while in office...
Variety critic Daniel D’Addario said the documentary is “primarily a film about a woman walking into and out of rooms,” while Gilbert said Ratner “seems desperate to find action, but there is none, stating for much of the film, the camera captures Trump “walking from liminal place to liminal place in five-inch heels.”
Ouch and double-ouch.
Forbes also notes that the film has a 0.4 rating on Metacritic.
