The AMC 14-screen movie theater in Port Chester and the Apple Cinemas 15-screen theater in White Plains are two of the approximately 1,500 movie theaters in the U.S. opening the documentary “Melania” on Jan. 30 to lackluster advance ticket sales. Although President Donald Trump has said that the movie about his wife Melania was “selling out really fast,” in Westchester as elsewhere rather than “really fast” advance ticket sales were at a snail’s pace.
The film follows Melania Trump during the 20 days before her husband’s inauguration for his second term as president. Amazon MGM paid $40 million to acquire the distribution rights and has budgeted another $35 million for marketing the movie. Melania Trump is reported to have received $28 million of the acquisition fee.
The slow pace of ticket sales for the film was highlighted after it began playing overseas and when, in England, only one ticket had been sold in advance for an opening day 3:10 pm showing at a flagship London theater. In Scotland, only 20 tickets were reportedly sold out of 1,916 available seats across some locations. The film was withdrawn from exhibition in South Africa. There were various reports of Republican groups in some areas of the U.S. buying advance tickets to give away to members.
While some moviegoers prefer to buy tickets in-person at the theater just before a showing rather than in advance online, and advance ticket sales do not necessarily reflect actual total ticket sales, advance sales can provide a strong clue as to what the overall box office performance of a movie will be. Blockbusters frequently come close to selling-out their opening weekends through advance ticket sales.
According to the advance ticket sale site for AMC’s Port Chester theater on the morning of opening day, “Melania” had sold a total of 90 tickets for the four showings that day. There were seven sold for the 2:15 show, 48 for 5:05 p.m., 35 for 7:30 and none for 10:15. For Saturday, 15 tickets were shown as being sold for the 5:00 p.m. showing, four for 7:45 and none for 10:30.
At the Apple Cinema site in White Plains on the film’s opening morning, three tickets had been sold for the first showing at noon, none for 2:30 p.m., 12 for 5:00, 10 for 7:30 and none for 10:00. For Saturday, no advance tickets had been sold for the 12:00, 5:00, 7:30 and 10:00 showings and only one ticket had been sold for the 2:30 p.m. show.
CNN reported that the documentary was made under the editorial control of Melania Trump. It was directed by Brett Ratner, and is his first major project since 2017 when he was accused of sexual misconduct by a number of women. He has denied the allegations. There were reports that about two-thirds of the film’s production crew asked that their names be removed from the film’s credits.
“We licensed the film for one reason and one reason only — because we think customers are going to love it,” CNN quoted an Amazon MGM Studios spokesperson as saying.
The film was screened Jan. 29 at The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, which has Donald Trump as its chairman. The Trumps hosted a private screening at the White House on Jan. 24.
The documentary is expected to begin streaming on Amazon Prime Video in about a month.
