‘Melania’ Movie Goes Straight to Streaming After Humiliating Box Office Bomb

If you blinked, you missed it.

Melania, the glossy Amazon-MGM documentary centered on First Lady Melania Trump, is heading to streaming after a painfully short theatrical run that fizzled fast. The film lands on Amazon Prime Video on Monday, March 9 — less than six weeks after its splashy Kennedy Center premiere and just over a month after it hit theaters on January 30.

The pitch was big: an intimate look at Melania’s life during the 20-day stretch before Donald Trump’s second inauguration. The rollout was even bigger, with the documentary opening in more than 2,000 theaters.

But the box office story turned into a “well… that happened.”

The film did post a strong opening weekend by documentary standards, pulling in around $7 million in the U.S. — a number that briefly let supporters claim victory. The problem? This wasn’t a typical documentary budget.

Melania reportedly cost about $75 million, making it one of the most expensive documentaries ever produced. With that kind of price tag, a “decent” start doesn’t cut it.

And the momentum didn’t just slow down — it vanished.

After the first weekend, attendance dropped hard. By the third weekend, the film reportedly saw a 62.3% plunge. By week four, it had fallen off box office rankings entirely, no longer appearing among IMDb’s top tracked films.

Internationally, things looked even rougher.

In the U.K., Melania brought in just £32,974 (about $44,604) across 155 cinemas in its opening weekend. South Africa reportedly yanked the film from theaters before it even opened.

All told, the documentary earned about $16.6 million worldwide, with only $291,000 coming from international ticket sales, according to Box Office Mojo.

So now comes the rescue plan: streaming.

Amazon is insisting the real money is still on the table once Melania hits Prime Video. The studio says it expects to recoup at least some of the costs through advertising and new Prime signups. Amazon MGM distribution chief Kevin Wilson previously framed the theatrical release as a “first moment” meant to build awareness and engagement before streaming.

Translation: the theaters were the trailer.

Critics weren’t exactly kind, either — and with the film now moving to Prime, the real test becomes whether curiosity, hate-watching, or pure political fascination can do what movie theaters didn’t.