'Melania' Was Be Bested By Another First Lady Over the Weekend

Over the weekend, the current First Lady’s documentary, Melania, marginally be bested box-office expectations by earning $7.1 million. There are, however, some asterisks involved. Yes, it was the biggest opening for a non-musical documentary in a decade, but the movie reportedly cost $40 million to make and carried a $35 million marketing price tag. For an outlet like Variety, apparently, if you’re a white woman who beats predictions, it’s a win even if the film earns only about one-seventh of its budget.

Then again, if you’re a Black-led movie that earns two-thirds of its budget on the way to massive profitability, you’ve apparently fallen short.

That’s apparently true even when there is evidence of bulk buying. Reportedly, huge blocks of tickets for Melania were purchased in bulk and passed around to retirement homes and Republican moviegoers, who may or likely did not actually use the tickets.

But hey! She beat expectations.

Interestingly, however, the documentary also provoked a surge in viewing for another First Lady documentary: Michelle Obama’s Becoming. That film was released in 2020, and if you spent any time on Netflix over the weekend, you may have noticed that it reentered the top ten. The viewing numbers are out, and it appears that Becoming was watched 480,000 times.

Now, the average price of a movie ticket in 2025 is $16. Melania earned $7.1 million, which works out to roughly 443,000 tickets sold. So even if we ignore the likelihood that thousands of those tickets weren’t actually used, a six-year-old documentary about a First Lady who has been out of office for a decade was still seen more times than a heavily promoted new movie about a current First Lady.

But I’m sure Variety will still somehow spin that into a loss.