Chapter 1: What significant numbers surround the Melania documentary?
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.
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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
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Chapter 2: How did the Melania documentary come to be?
They have Spongebob buckets, but no. not melania buckets they're still clearly people that like her and are gonna like what they see what ended up being my most favorite thing about this movie was the fact that it was so enlightening she was an executive she was a great model she's gorgeous the theater were it was actually a full theater everyone was
kind of clapping, and it was a fun experience.
Okay, so give me your review overall out of how many stars, if you could sum it up. If you looked at it, as I did, as a lost opportunity for Melania to really come center stage and gain more fans, it was kind of a zero. You know, it was advertised as this new reveal, pulling the curtain back on Melania. But actually, you never see her in jeans.
She's constantly perfectly dressed in designer gear, full makeup. I think she could have humanized herself. And, you know, if that was the goal, which I think people want to know, like...
what does she do you know she disappears for weeks at a time what is she doing and there's none of that we see her jet setting in and out of you know vans getting into a private plane and jetting between her mansion in florida beside the ocean with a spa and then coming back into trump tower gold doors mahogany marble floors and we know that we've seen that
My sense is that this has been kind of ravaged by critics, that you're not alone in your low star rating. Is that right? Well, people have said, you know, it's an infomercial. It's the worst movie we've ever seen. It's an abomination. It's an embarrassment. All right, what we have with Melania is a part documentary, part propaganda film, part Devil Wears Prada sequel without the lovable lead.
It totally makes no sense. If they wanted to make a documentary about her, they should have given us some more of her backstory. Instead, it's truly all about the Hamburglar look.
And Rotten Tomatoes, you know, had 11, I gave it 11% out of a, in a scale of 100. So, but, you know, we've seen movies that people go to see and like that critics, you know, pan. So here we go again. Here we go again. I want to get into the meat also, but, you know, how did this movie even come to be? Like, give us the origin story of the Melania Trump documentary.
Apparently there was a conversation that included Jeff Bezos, who not only is one of the richest men in the world, but he owns Amazon and he owns this studio. And there was talk and, you know, Melania wanted to do a movie and voila, a deal was made and he paid an extraordinary amount for it.
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Chapter 3: What insights does the documentary provide about Melania Trump?
I mean, that's not that deep of an insight. No, there was no deep reflection. I mean, I think, again, what a missed opportunity. She has an incredible story to tell, and she just doesn't tell it. I mean, actually, it made me think that maybe she's smarter than many people believe, because now she can get paid for another movie that offers to reveal, like, she could do a sequel.
Okay, this time I really will reveal, and she could make millions more. Oh. You know, a lot of celebrities have shied away from, you know, public vulnerability. They don't necessarily, maybe we're not surprised that this documentary doesn't lay out kind of deeper insights into her life. But, you know, fashion also seems to be a core part of what this documentary was.
Was it making some sort of argument that even I have heard some Trump supporters make in political spaces that, you know, Melania Trump is an underrated actress? figure in, you know, when we think about legacy fashion worlds like Vogue or other things like that? I think clearly she thinks about fashion, she thinks about clothes to an extraordinary degree.
Just my style. There is not really a message. That's what I like, and they will see it in the film. Okay.
And she talks about sharp colors and that black and white are her favorite colors, and there's an enormous percent of the movie She's standing there and she's like, take this in a pinch, you know, with people hemming and like, you clearly see that she has an eye.
The idea from the details, how I designed it. Yes.
And it will be all in the film. And every detail. She talks that her mother, who was a seamstress and made patterns, gave her her fashion sense, her attention to detail. That we know, we believe. It's just that when you're the first lady, there is this expectation that you do that for other people.
So why, for instance, didn't she announce that, okay, $20 million made by this thing will go to help young people, young people who want to go to fashion, you know, underprivileged people. There was one part where she talked about foster children. I mean, I have no doubt that she cares about children. She is clearly a concerned mom, a devoted mother. She talks about Barron.
We see him on the screen. We don't see the other stepchildren, except glancingly in the back. But Barron is something that he's talked about, and she's front and center in her life. She loves children. I believe that. I know that talking to people. But what is she doing for them? She talks about fostering children, but there's no details. And because in the past...
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Chapter 4: What are the critical reviews of the Melania documentary?
Like, there's a public agenda. What are you doing today? She said, well, I don't have to do that. I'm not elected. I'm just the spouse. So she would hide.
Like, nobody knew where she was. Why wasn't Melania Trump at the White House with President-elect Donald Trump?
Where on earth is Melania? So she has redefined the role, and she says, and she told me, you know, I'm not the elected one, and she can do whatever she wants. And so if she doesn't feel like it, she doesn't go. And, you know, it kind of works because people, oh, my God, Melani hasn't been seen in two weeks. She's coming out. And so she does get more people to pay attention when she does speak.
Again, we have this tradition that the First Lady helps others. uses the powerful office, the amazing reach of the microphone and platform of the First Lady. I mean, it's so powerful. Laura Bush did it. created the National Book Festival, had a whole campaign, Let's Read Literacy.
No matter what our political views might be or what our differences might be of any kind, we all love books and we all love reading.
Michelle Obama tackled the obesity campaign. To achieve a single but very ambitious goal, and that's to solve the problem of childhood obesity in a generation. So, like, let's, she could do something, even if it was in fashion. Hey, wouldn't that be great? You know, hey, all these young people who want to get in fashion, I can help you. But the absence does, like, lead to some questions.
I mean, you kind of implied this, but do we know where she's been? Like, you know, my kind of question for the last year is actually just, you know, what has she been up to? Well, she's wherever Barron is, pretty much. And Barron now likes to be in the White House. I like my suitcase. Now he's 19.
And so she's now, in this term, more in the White House than she has in the past, mainly because Barron wants to be there. But she loves to go to New York, Trump Tower, and she loves to go to Mar-a-Lago. She calls it Mar-a-Lago in Florida, her refuge in the movie. She spends a lot of time Not with her husband. And that's, I think, the big difference.
Like the Bidens, you'd see them in Delaware riding bikes. You'd see the Obamas going to dinner. These little candid moments where it actually looked like they liked each other. You know, the Bushes holding hands. Like, you don't see that with the Trumps. When he's leaning in to kiss her under her hat, it looks so awkward you want to cringe. Yeah.
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