What Does Melania Trump's Documentary Selling Only ONE Ticket At London Premiere Really Mean?

Melania is an authorised, high-profile Brett Ratner documentary about USA's First Lady Melania Trump that blends political access, personal branding and behind-the-scenes White House Storytelling. But

going by latest trends, it seems not all is well with the documentary on US President Donald Trump’s wife, despite its counter-programming gambit. Advance ticket sales for Melania appear shockingly sluggish in the UK, with only one ticket getting sold for its opening Friday afternoon screening and only two booked for the evening show at Vue’s flagship Islington cinema in London. As per several reports Vue locations in Blackburn, Castleford and Hamilton, in fact, reported zero advance bookings across dozens of scheduled screenings. What does it really mean for Melania?

What Are The Problems With Melania – Four-Wall Strategy And More

To be honest, problems with Melania are not about a single scandal. They are more a mix of political, commercial and credibility controversies around the film and its release. When it comes to UK screenings reportedly selling just one ticket, industry insiders suspect a four-walling strategy. The four-walling strategy is a distribution model in which a studio pay cinemas a flat fee to secure screens rather than distributing the box office revenue. This could possibly highlight the reason why exhibitors have allocated screens to a documentary with no tangible commercial prospects.

In fact, in an interaction with Telegraph UK, Vue chief executive Tim Richards said the chain received criticism for screening the film but defended the decision on principle stating that if it is BBFC (British Board Of Film Certification) approved, they would look at it and 99 per cent of the time they would show it. According to him, they were never there to play judge and jury to censor movies.

Amazon MGM Studio’s $40 million: Costly Prestige Play

Amazon MGM Studios reportedly paid $40 million for the documentary rights. Reports suggest that it includes a substantial fee for Melania Trump. Amazon MGM and is spending $35 million on global marketing, heavily concentrated in the US with major outdoor campaigns and high-profile events. For the unversed, the film chronicles the 20 days before Donald Trump’s return to power in January 2025 and has been screened at the White House. An official premiere also happened at Washington’s Kennedy Center (renamed the Trump-Kennedy Center in a contested move). Melania is set to release in 27 countries.

Melania’s Box Office Expectations vs Reality

As per early projections for the documentary, US opening weekend is expected to rake in anything from $1 million to $2 million. On the other hand, UK forecasts are murkier. However, early data points to an underwhelming debut. Even if audiences do come to theatres, the massive scale of the rollout (over 100 cinemas) means the per-screen average is likely to be extremely low.

Melania and Politics, Control, Controversy

Melania Trump herself is an executive producer on the film, and her involvement reportedly extended deeply into production and marketing decisions. The project also marks director Brett Ratner’s return to filmmaking after multiple sexual misconduct allegations in 2017, which he has subsequently denied. Donald Trump, on his part has promoted the documentary heavily on social media, calling it “a MUST WATCH” and claiming tickets were “selling out, FAST!”. However, his claim contrasts sharply with UK advance sales data.In all honesty, the controversy around Melania isn’t about Melania Trump personally doing something new, but rather about what the film is representing. Melania is a prestige documentary with blockbuster-level spending despite a seemingly tiny audience demand. The film fuels growing questions over whether it functions as propaganda rather than independent journalism, and the broader politics-business demonstration that has come to define Trump-era media.