“Melania” the Movie Opens Well But in Manhattan, Many Empty Seats

Though Melania Trump’s new documentary opened to tepid reviews, it had a surprisingly decent office showing, grossing a reported $7 million in its opening weekend. How many of those seats were sold in Manhattan? The answer, if imprecise, appears to be not that many.

The pre-release publicity was huge-ly. President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social: “Get your tickets today–Selling out, FAST!”

Two days before the 104-minute, eponymously titled “Melania“ was set to open in nearly 1,500 theaters nationwide, the First Lady rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange to promote the film. It depicted Melania in the twenty days in January before Donald Trump was sworn in to start his second term on Jan. 20, 2025.

The project was co-produced and directed by Brett Ratner, best known for the “Rush Hour” franchise and long shadowed by multiple allegations of sexual misconduct.

Amazon MGM reportedly paid $40 million for the rights following a competitive bidding war.

The film premiered on January 29 at the [Trump] Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., drawing a guest list that included former New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Dr. Oz, and Dr. Phil, according to The Hollywood Reporter. An advance screening of the film was held earlier in the White House for 70 people, which was heavily attended by Wall St. and tech titans, including Apple CEO Tim Cook and Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.

But the real test was never going to be the premiere crowd—it was whether everyday New Yorkers would show up.

Despite a saturation of subway ads across Manhattan, turnout suggests the answer is almost universally “no.”

Across roughly a dozen theaters in the city, attendance has been consistently soft, Straus News found in our opening day survey of sold seats.

At AMC Lincoln Square 13, one of Manhattan’s busiest multiplexes, opening-day numbers showed the 4:00 p.m. showing offered 72 seats, with 48 occupied, a fill rate of 66.7 percent.

The 6:45 p.m. screening performed slightly better, drawing 50 attendees for a 69.4 percent capacity.

The strongest showing came at 9:45 p.m., where 52 seats were filled, topping out at 72.2 percent.

Even then, those figures fall short of what a heavily promoted documentary would hope to draw on opening day with a $35 million marketing push that Amazon put behind it.

Earlier showings were so under-attended that the theater discounted the 10:30 a.m. and 1:15 p.m. screenings by 20 percent.

The Daily Mail’s Brigid Brown was anxious to get an early viewing and checked into the AMC theater at 34th St. for the 10 a.m. show, its first of the day. “I went to the Melania Trump movie in NYC and there weren’t any moviegoers there,” she wrote, although she conceded a 10 a.m weekday slot is not prime movie viewing time. She found the only other viewers she encountered that morning were other journalists.

The picture wasn’t much brighter elsewhere. At AMC Empire 25, a Times Square anchor that typically benefits from heavy foot traffic, the lone 7:30 p.m. showing had 42 filled seats, in a 60 seat theater.

Regal Battery Park’s 7:20 p.m. screening holds 36 seats, just 26 of them occupied.

Regal Union Square’s 7:20 p.m. showing drew 29 attendees in a 42-seat auditorium.

Even larger recliner theaters failed to meaningfully boost momentum.

Regal Screen 9 seated 105 people, with 82 seats filled, perhaps the strongest showing on opening day. AMC Newport Centre 11 and AMC 34th Street 14 hovered around three-quarters full for its prime time showings.

Taken together, the numbers paint a clear picture. Melania didn’t just underperform—it struggled to find an audience at all.

Elsewhere, days before the film officially reached theaters, a Craigslist ad posted in Boston, MA., claimed to offer $50 to anyone willing to attend an opening-day screening. The only proviso was that the viewer had to stay for the full film.

The ad, was still live at the time of reporting and while it was not independently verified by Straus News, it was widely mocked after circulating on social media.

Wired, in an analysis of over 1,400, found that it sold out in only two theaters: the AMC Classic Indian River 24 in Vero Beach, Florida and the AMC Independence Commons 20 in Independence, Missouri.

Due to the limited number of outlets granted advance review screenings there were no reviews before opening night. By the morning after, Rotten Tomatoes was saying that critics gave it a score of six percent to eight percent (rotten). Audiences, undoubtedly comprised of fans of Melania the person gave “Melania” the movie a rave score of between 98 to 99 percent, (fresh).

And the New York Times was reporting that Melania was actually the best showing for a documentary in 14 years, with an estimated box office nationally of $8 million. It landed in third place on weekend box scores behind “Send Help,” a 20th Century a horror thriller with about $20 million in ticket sales and “Iron Lung,” a low budget horror-science fiction flick that sold an estimated $18 million in tickets. But given that Amazon spent $75 million between acquiring rights and marketing, Melania has a long way to go to recoup its investment, even if her fans do show up in places outside of Manhattan.

“I’m very proud of the film,” Melania told reporters on the night of its premiere that she attended with President Trump on Jan. 29.

“You will see humor, you will see grief, you will see fashion,” she said adding and “what it takes from going from private citizen to first lady again.”

Decider reported, a Letterboxd user identified as @booksandbars drew widespread attention after writing, “If they showed this on a plane, people would still walk out.”