The hit documentary Melania, an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at Melania Trump during the 20 days leading up to Donald Trump’s second presidential inauguration in January 2025 distributed by Amazon MGM Studios, has posted a very strong opening weekend performance — including an impressive $8.1 million box office debut, an “A” CinemaScore, and overwhelming audience enthusiasm — with exit polls revealing that 24% of attending viewers who subscribe to streaming services are Apple TV members, placing it solidly behind only Prime Video (54%) and Netflix (53%).
Melania has scored the best box office opening for a documentary in a decade.
Anthony D’Alessandro for Deadline:
The exit scores for Melania] are quite royal with an “A” CinemaScore, 5 stars on Screen Engine/Comscore’s PostTrak, and get this — an 89% definite recommend; unheard for any movie. If a movie is in the 70 percentile range, that’s outstanding. While a figure like that indicates a stampede for a tentpole, it’s interesting to see whether this documentary can overperform even more than it already is, especially off its older crowd.
The turnout here for the Brett Ratner-directed nonfiction film is akin to that of a faith-based movie: 72% women, with 72% over 55. Audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is 99% while critics have bashed the movie at 6%. Melania is playing best in the South (12% over the norm) and South Central with the Cinemark Palace 21 in Boca Raton, FL the pic’s current highest grossing location with over $10K. Pic’s top grossing markets are Dallas, Orlando, Tampa, Phoenix, Houston, Atlanta, West Palm Beach, Fort Myers, Miami, Minnesota, Nashville, Jackson, MI; St. Louis, Las Vegas, Cleveland — the list goes on… no NYC or LA in this bunch. Diversity demos on this one is 74% Caucasian, 11% Latino and Hispanic, 4% Black, 4% Asian American and 7% Native American/other.
In PostTrak exits for Melania, 49% identified as Republicans, 47% said they were politically conservative, Evangelical Christians made up 28% of those attending while Democrats repped 2% of the audience.
Walk-up business is sold with 52% of the audience buying their tickets to Melania same day… Don’t say linear is dead: For the Melania crowd, 22% said that TV ads were the most influential form of advertisement, but they also cited social media as being a big influencer at 23%.
Interesting to note that among the streaming subscribers attending Melania this weekend, 54% were Prime Members, 53% Netflix, 24% Apple TV, and 22% a piece for Hulu and Disney+ subs.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple TV subscribers are seemingly following Apple CEO Tim Cook’s lead:
Apple CEO Tim Cook attends VIP White House screening of ‘Melania’ film with President Trump – January 26, 2026
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