Melania's Box Office Plunge: A Documentary's Struggle in the Face of Super Bowl Shadow
Melania Trump's documentary takes a nosedive at the box office during its second weekend, while the Super Bowl weekend remains a slow period for cinema attendance.
The Super Bowl weekend is known for its quiet cinema attendance, and this year was no exception. With the NFL broadcast attracting a massive television audience, studios shifted their focus to advertising upcoming blockbusters. While the survival thriller 'Send Help' retained its top spot for ticket sales, the Melania Trump documentary 'Melania' plummeted sharply in its second week, adding 300 theaters but dropping to $2.4 million in ticket sales, down 67% from its debut. This rapid downturn suggests the documentary is headed for a flop, despite its high price tag of $40 million for film rights and $35 million for marketing.
The North American total for 'Melania' stands at $13.4 million, and while Amazon MGM has not released international figures, they are expected to be low. The film's ticket sales, which are impressive for a less expensive documentary, were a talking point throughout the week, with late-night hosts Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel mocking the movie's sales as a 'rigged outcome'.
Elsewhere in theaters, the Italy-set Kevin James romantic comedy 'Solo Mio' debuted with a robust $7.2 million, a major win for the Christian-oriented Angel Studios. The K-pop concert film 'Stray Kids: The Dominate Experience' launched with $5.6 million, and the Luc Besson-directed Bram Stoker adaptation 'Dracula' opened with $4.5 million, a studio-best debut for the indie distributor Vertical.
One of the most unusual releases in theaters is the low-budget indie 'Iron Lung'. The YouTube filmmaker Markiplier, who self-financed and self-distributed the R-rated video game adaptation, along with writing, directing, and starring in it, collected $6.2 million in its second weekend, bringing its two-week total to $31.2 million. It cost $3 million to make.
With the final domestic figures being released on Monday, the top 10 movies by domestic box office are as follows:
- Send Help, $10 million.
- Solo Mio, $7.2 million.
- Iron Lung, $6 million.
- Stray Kids: The Dominate Experience, $5.6 million.
- Dracula, $4.5 million.
- Zootopia 2, $4 million.
- Avatar: Fire and Ash, $3.5 million.
- The Strangers: Chapter 3, $3.5 million.
- Shelter, $2.4 million.
- Melania, $2.4 million.
But here's where it gets controversial... The Melania documentary's poor performance raises questions about the effectiveness of its marketing strategy and the appeal of its subject matter to a wider audience. And this is the part most people miss... The Super Bowl weekend's slow cinema attendance and the documentary's struggle suggest that the film industry may need to reevaluate its strategies for promoting and distributing documentaries, especially those with high production costs.
