Why Melania Documentary’s Massive Marketing Budget Is Raising Eyebrows

The Melania documentary’s monumental flop has some industry professionals wondering why Amazon accepted the project in the first place.

The e-commerce giant’s film studio shelled out a whopping $40 million to make the motion picture, which was produced by Melania Trump herself and directed by accused Hollywood abuser and profoundly canceled filmmaker Brett Ratner.

Some $35 million was set aside to promote Melania, nearly double the initial budget, squeezing advertisements into television screens across the country and paying top dollar for highly coveted commercial slots in the NFL playoff games.

Altogether, Melania is the most expensive documentary film ever produced, with a rollout more akin to that of a mid-grade blockbuster than a nonfiction portrait.

Before the first lady’s film was signed—with much gusto by the likes of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and CEO Andy Jassy—some of the most expensive documentary productions included Planet Earth, a groundbreaking portrait of the globe’s various ecosystems that cost the BBC roughly $25 million, and The World at War, a sweeping 26-part documentary series that covered hundreds of interviews and cost $17.6 million.

But even those examples are far and away from the typical price tag on a documentary. Super Size Me, which grossed over $20.6 million at the worldwide box office, cost just $65,000 to produce.

That’s caused some in Hollywood to question why Melania was made in the first place.

“This has to be the most expensive documentary ever made that didn’t involve music licensing,” Ted Hope, the former co-head of movies at Amazon Studios, told The New York Times. “How can it not be equated with currying favor or an outright bribe? How can that not be the case?”

And yet the film has hardly attracted any eyes whatsoever. The documentary has been advertised as a fly-on-the-wall depiction of Melania’s life in the days preceding her husband’s second presidential inauguration—a topic that, judging by ticket sales, interests no one.

So far, Melania has struggled to fill seats, so much so that the realization sparked a social media trend this week in which users post their local AMC or Regal Cinema’s seat availability for the film’s premiere. Across the country, theaters are empty.

The situation has become so dire that conservative groups have gotten involved, buying out entire blocks of seats or even whole screenings in a flagrant effort to save face for the president.

“This isn’t organic demand,” one GOP insider told gossip columnist Rob Shuter’s Naughty but Nice substack. “It’s about optics. Empty theaters look terrible.”

Craigslist ads have popped up, with at least one offering to pay people as much as $50 to attend screenings of the film, though it’s not clear if the listings are legitimate or a joke.

“If the GOP didn’t buy the seats, no one would,” another source told Shuter.

Border czar Tom Homan seems to think that free speech is the reason federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.

“I begged for the last two months on TV … for the rhetoric to stop. I said in March: If the rhetoric didn’t stop, there’s gonna be bloodshed. And there has been,” Homan said at his introductory press conference in Minneapolis Thursday morning, as he takes over Operation Metro Surge from Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino.

“I wish I wasn’t right. I don’t wanna see anybody die. Not officers, not members of the community, and not the targets of our operations,” Homan continued. “For the people out there who don’t like what ICE is doing—if you want certain laws reformed, then take it up with Congress.”

The Trump administration’s framing of this situation is bizarre. It seems impossible for them to grasp that marching into Minneapolis with thousands of masked federal agents, doing door-to-door raids, and killing two people might elicit some resistance from the community. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and protesters being “mean” to agents is not the reason two people are dead. And if we’re so focused on rhetoric, what about the slanderous things that President Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, and Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino have said about Renee Good and Alex Pretti? That rhetoric is far more incendiary than the response from the community.

Senior Trump administration officials have held meetings with the Alberta Prosperity Project, a fringe separatist group that seeks to split the province away from Canada. 

The Financial Times reports that State Department officials have met representatives from the group in Washington, D.C., three times in the last nine months. The group’s counsel, Jeff Rath, told the publication, “We’re meeting very, very senior people leaving our meetings to go directly to the Oval Office. 

“The U.S. is extremely enthusiastic about a free and independent Alberta,” Rath said. 

The Times, citing unnamed sources, said that the group was hoping for another meeting in February to request $500 billion in credit to prop up the province if an independence referendum, which has not yet been called, were to pass. The State Department confirmed the meetings to the publication but said, “No commitments were made,” and a White House official added that “no such support, or any other commitments, was conveyed.”

Last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent played up Albertan independence, calling the oil-rich province “a natural partner for the U.S.”

“They have great resources. The Albertans are very independent people. Rumor that they may have a referendum on whether they want to stay in Canada or not,” Bessent said to right-wing podcaster Jack Posobiec.  

Podcaster and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon discussed Alberta breaking away from Canada in an episode in November, saying that President Trump sees Canada like Ukraine. 

“The Chinese and the Russians are up there and they see the undefended northern territories of Canada, they’re going to take a bite,” Bannon said. His guest, right-wing commentator Brandon Weichert, expounded further. 

“I know a lot of the people in charge of the Alberta separatist movement,” Weichert said. “The Albertans are ready to vote in the next six months. They’re going to get out of the Canadian union. They’re going to become an independent country. We’re going to recognize them, and that’s going to put them on the pathway to becoming the fifty-first state.” 

In reality, polls show that the majority of Albertans would prefer to stay in Canada. Canadian leaders have denounced the APP’s meetings, with British Columbia Premier David Eby calling them “treason” and Ontario Premier Doug Ford saying that “going behind Canada’s back and negotiating is unacceptable.”

The U.S. is growing increasingly unpopular in Canada, thanks to Trump’s threats to make them the “fifty-first state.” The idea that his team would try to engineer a breakup of the country will only worsen the relationship, especially considering that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is already seeking to make Canada financially independent from the U.S.

Some people marry to obtain U.S. citizenship, while others undergo a complex and pricey naturalization process. For Nicki Minaj, it was a simple matter of panhandling the Trump administration.

The Trinidadian rapper turned MAGA activist has been begging for citizenship for months. In one particularly skin-crawling social media missive in November, Minaj whimpered to “Papi Trumpo” in a bid for “honorary citizenship.”

On Wednesday, her dreams came true.

Shortly after appearing beside the president for the unveiling of Trump Accounts—the White House’s attempt to slyly privatize Social Security—Minaj posted an image of her reward: a newly minted Trump “Gold Card” granting her legal residency and a pathway to citizenship.

“Residency? Residency? The cope is coping,” Minaj posted Wednesday night alongside an image of the Chucky doll flashing a middle finger. “Finalizing that citizenship paperwork as we speak as per MY wonderful, gracious, charming President.

“Gold Trump card free of charge,” she added.

For months, Donald Trump and his team pitched his Amex-inspired “gold card” as a replacement for the EB-5 visa program, which gives foreign investors an opportunity to gain permanent residency and bypass the traditional visa system. But the $5 million price tag on the slice of plastic has sparked significant backlash, as did its questionable legality.

The “gold card” program officially launched in late 2025, but the novel citizenship framework has come under fire by immigration experts, who have scrutinized the Trump administration’s decision to bypass standard congressional immigration law.

Minaj took a hard-right turn toward MAGA avenue three months ago, when her vaccine skepticism—which by then had become a hallmark of the far right—veered into a larger conservative ideology.

Since then, her “everything must go” sellout spree has morphed her into an administration mouthpiece. She has reposted White House messaging attacking trans kids, spoken at the United Nations on behalf of the Trump administration, chastised her own LGBTQ+ fans (after initially using her allyship to propel her music career), joined Erika Kirk at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest, and attacked Democrats with the White House’s talking points.

National leadership at the Department of Veterans Affairs initially blocked a memorial planned for Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old ICU nurse who was shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis.

In an email obtained by The New Republic, officials at the Minneapolis VA claimed that “local leadership was instructed to pause the memorial” for Pretti, initially scheduled for Tuesday at noon.

“So in other words, somebody told our people, ‘Back off,’” said one Minneapolis VA employee, who spoke with TNR under the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

“Our local leadership I think is very good, they’re quite sensitive, I mean they’re really trying to do that. But they’re getting it from above,” the employee said. “I mean, there’s supposed to be a memorial service yesterday, they’re told to postpone it? I mean, come on! That doesn’t seem consistent with how they usually respond.”

“As an institution, we owe it to him,” the employee said. “And I think the formal ritualized events help some people.”

Two employees also told The Washington Post that a memorial for Pretti had been initially blocked, but another service is scheduled for next week.

In response to an inquiry Wednesday about why the first memorial was canceled, Minneapolis VA Medical Center spokesperson Melanie Nelson told TNR that the organization was still working to schedule an event.

“VA employees are welcome to memorialize Alex Pretti in their own way as long as they are respectful and it does not interfere with their work duties,” the statement said.

At the Minneapolis VA, the decision to cancel Pretti’s memorial was another blow in an ongoing struggle with national leadership under the Trump administration. During the Biden administration, “we felt like the national office was there to support us in our mission as opposed to hamper us,” the first employee told TNR.

While VA Secretary Doug Collins has reportedly not issued an agency-wide statement about Pretti’s killing, he did blame Democratic leadership for his death on social media. “Such tragedies are unfortunately happening in Minnesota because of state and local officials’ refusal to cooperate with the federal government to enforce the law and deport dangerous illegal criminals,” Collins said on X Sunday.

“Really, that kind of got to me,” the employee said, referring to Collins’s statement. “And that’s our leader at the highest level.”