Melania is expected to make around $3 to $8 million this weekend — way, way short of its $40 million production budget alone.
Melania Trump’s evasion of her own husband (and most responsibilities as the First Lady of the United States) deserves admiration and study. Melania’s presence in the White House has remained sparse; she comes in, and through sliding glass doors, it seems, only to disappear moments after a press junket. Her documentary, Melania, is billed as an intimate, detailed, unprecedented glimpse into the First Lady’s life.
But those hyperboles aren’t generating either good reviews or healthy ticket sales for the documentary. Made on a $40 million production budget and pushed by a $35 advertising budget footed by Amazon MGM Studio, the film’s opening weekend sales figures are predicted to land somewhere between $3 and $8 million, recouping just 10% of its production costs.
Ticket sales in San Francisco surely won’t help close that margin … with only a few dozen tickets reserved for the costly documentary ahead of its opening weekend.
Melania is currently showing in AMC and Cinemark locations in the San Francisco Bay Area; only AMC Metreon 16 and Regal Stonestown Galleria are screening Melania in San Francisco proper, the film only being released in each theatre’s smallest auditoriums.
As of publishing, Melania has failed to sell out any of these small San Francisco auditoriums that boast fewer than 40 seats. In fact, each showtime for the First Lady’s documentary hasn’t even sold a third of the available seats for each showing. Collevelity, only a few dozen tickets have been reserved for Melania in San Francisco ahead of the film’s entire opening weekend schedule. Moreover, and perhaps more searing, some napkin math shows the First Lady’s flopping documentary has secured less than 15% of all tickets available for the film in SF.
It’s a similar story across the Bay Area — and in most instances, a far worse outlook. East Bay’s foremost AMC Theater, located in Emeryville, is screening Melania in its standard theaters that have around 100-seat capacities. Melania has failed to secure fewer than ten seats for each of its showtimes.
When they go low, we don’t go to the box office.
Feature image: Courtesy of PICYLR
