Mary Jordan

I've watched her now over seven or eight years, and her independence is growing by the minute. When she just did her big documentary, her movie, she barely mentioned her husband. Every time she has an interview, which is very infrequently, she talks about being independent. So I'm not surprised at all. I think she was boiling over, and she said very little about her husband. I think she's just sick of being dragged online about this.

When it comes to the new Melania movie, here are some important numbers to remember.

40 million.

That's how much Amazon paid Melania Trump's production studio for the rights to the film.

It's the highest price ever paid for a documentary.

35 million, that's about how much Amazon spent marketing the film.

28 million, how much went to the First Lady.

And seven million, that's how much the Melania movie made on opening weekend, which is honestly pretty good, and certainly more than many box office insiders projected.

So how did this movie get made?

Who's it for?

And if this is finally Melania Trump's side of the story, what does she have to say?

That's coming up on Today Explained from Vox.

Mary Jordan is an associate editor of The Washington Post.

She wrote a book on Melania Trump called The Art of Her Deal, The Untold Story of Melania Trump.

On Friday, she and producer Ariana Aspuru braved the cold and went to see a morning showing of Melania the movie.

The press was barred from the premiere the night before, which itself was unusual.

And so I went the next morning, and there were a couple dozen people in the theater.

So it was mostly empty.

But it was in New York, and that's not Trump country, clearly.

theater seven bought our ticket we're at the amc um because there's quite a few theaters that are now screening it along with um other other movies so we'll see if anybody shows i mean the the focus of of this they keep saying is 20 days leading up to the inaugural so i don't i don't know will there be something interesting or relevant we'll find out