The hit documentary Melania, an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at Melania Trump during the 20 days leading up to Donald Trump’s second presidential inauguration in January 2025 distributed by Amazon MGM Studios, has posted a very strong opening weekend performance — including an impressive $8.1 million box office debut, an “A” CinemaScore, and overwhelming audience enthusiasm — with exit polls revealing that 24% of attending viewers who subscribe to streaming services are Apple TV members, placing it solidly behind only Prime Video (54%) and Netflix (53%).
Melania has scored the best box office opening for a documentary in a decade.
MELANIA, the film.
#1 Highest Opening In 10 Yrs (Doc)
Loved By All – “A” CinemaScore pic.twitter.com/HTVM0Cu2Jv— MELANIA TRUMP (@MELANIATRUMP) January 31, 2026
Anthony D’Alessandro for Deadline:
The exit scores for Melania] are quite royal with an “A” CinemaScore, 5 stars on Screen Engine/Comscore’s PostTrak, and get this — an 89% definite recommend; unheard for any movie. If a movie is in the 70 percentile range, that’s outstanding. While a figure like that indicates a stampede for a tentpole, it’s interesting to see whether this documentary can overperform even more than it already is, especially off its older crowd.
The turnout here for the Brett Ratner-directed nonfiction film is akin to that of a faith-based movie: 72% women, with 72% over 55. Audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is 99% while critics have bashed the movie at 6%. Melania is playing best in the South (12% over the norm) and South Central with the Cinemark Palace 21 in Boca Raton, FL the pic’s current highest grossing location with over $10K. Pic’s top grossing markets are Dallas, Orlando, Tampa, Phoenix, Houston, Atlanta, West Palm Beach, Fort Myers, Miami, Minnesota, Nashville, Jackson, MI; St. Louis, Las Vegas, Cleveland — the list goes on… no NYC or LA in this bunch. Diversity demos on this one is 74% Caucasian, 11% Latino and Hispanic, 4% Black, 4% Asian American and 7% Native American/other.
In PostTrak exits for Melania, 49% identified as Republicans, 47% said they were politically conservative, Evangelical Christians made up 28% of those attending while Democrats repped 2% of the audience.
Walk-up business is sold with 52% of the audience buying their tickets to Melania same day… Don’t say linear is dead: For the Melania crowd, 22% said that TV ads were the most influential form of advertisement, but they also cited social media as being a big influencer at 23%.
Interesting to note that among the streaming subscribers attending Melania this weekend, 54% were Prime Members, 53% Netflix, 24% Apple TV, and 22% a piece for Hulu and Disney+ subs.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple TV subscribers are seemingly following Apple CEO Tim Cook’s lead:
Apple CEO Tim Cook attends VIP White House screening of ‘Melania’ film with President Trump – January 26, 2026
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
Don’t sell it short, “Melania” is a SMASH HIT!
Domestically, “Melania” has already outgrossed Jennifer Lawrence’s most recent movie, “Die My Love.”
Domestically, “Melania” has already outgrossed the Stephen King movie, “The Life of Chuck.”
Domestically, “Melania” has already outgrossed the latest from a Coen brother, ”
Honey Don’t!”
“Melania” drew a bigger opening weekend on fewer screens (1,500) than the Dwayne Johnson movie,”The Smashing Machine” did on 3,345 screens.
“Melania” drew more opening weekend ticket sales than “Nuremberg,” starring Russell Crowe did opening on 1,802 screens.
“Melania” sold more opening weekend tickets than the Benedict Cumberbatch/Olivia Colman remake ‘The Roses” did on 2,700 screens.
“Melania” scored a better opening weekend than the combined power of Darren Aronofsky and Austin Butler did for “Caught Stealing,” which opened on 3,578 screens.
None of the titles listed above faced a relentless, multi-billion-dollar, coordinated propaganda assault from multinational corporations in the political and entertainment media.
Our lying, garbage media pulled out all the stops and once again whored out their credibility, hoping that a “failure narrative” would become self-fulfilling.
Well, ha ha.
Once again, the Trumps have made complete fools of the Worst People In The World.
Maybe another tattoo or piercing will help them cope. – John Nolte, January 31, 2026
this makes no sense, who is lying, deadline’s Anthony D’Alessandro or all the social media reports of ZERO attendees in all the empty cinemas in US/UK??
Kyle Kulinski Jan28
“‘1 TICKET SOLD’: Melania Documentary BOMBS In Record Breaking Fashion”
Raw America and Really American Jan27
“Melania Trump FURIOUS: Movie Has ALREADY Flopped… BEFORE Release!”
Occupy Democrats Jan29
“Trump RAGES As The WORLD LAUGHS At MELANIA’S MOVIE FLOP”
I know, it’s totally nonsensical! (Love your sarcasm!)
The Hollywood Reporter: Box Office: ‘Melania’ Heads for $8 Million Opening, the Best Showing in a Decade for a Doc
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/box-office-melania-opening-weekend-1236490092/
Every first person report of the showings that I’ve read (and I’ve read several) says that virtually all of those actually seeing this thing are reporters and companions to reporters. The reporters are almost universally describing just how horrible it is.
Thank you for info. So who are most of the viewers paying $8M, surely they can’t be reporters, their companions, even Mr T does not have so many friends, or is it that Mr T is paying 1000s to attend the show and this explains why reporters at least dislike the docu…??
C’mon, listening to Michelle O voice her never-ending discontent on her p-cast has similar popularity.