Melania’s documentary may have become a nightmare but Jeff Bezos still comes out a winner

New documentary "Melania" is about US first lady Melania Trump. Photo / Getty Images

It may not be in the 2026 Oscars race, but new documentary Melania, about US first lady Melania Trump, could lay claim to being this year’s most riveting drama – albeit of the behind-the-scenes variety. There have been angrily defaced posters, fears of a woeful box office, claims that some of the film’s crew loathed its controversial director, and reports of concerns expressed by employees within Amazon’s entertainment division. The gloss, it seems, is threatening to come off this US$40 million ($69m) portrait of power.

Such mutterings will add to the suspicion around Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos’ motives in throwing his weight – not to mention eye-watering sums of money – behind the project. The documentary was granted a cushy $40m licensing deal by Amazon, of which Melania reportedly pocked $28m, far exceeding rival bids for the film (Disney only bid around $14m). This was also the most Amazon had ever paid for a piece of content.

Many observers have speculated that this is Bezos’ craven way of ingratiating himself with Donald Trump. Those suspicions were turbo-charged by the film’s surprisingly wide release – this week, it hit 3300 cinemas in 30 countries worldwide – and the relentless marketing blitz, including countless TV ads, billboards and even a gigantic projection of the trailer on to the Sphere events venue in Las Vegas.

Ted Hope, a former employee of Amazon’s film division, told The New York Times this week: “This has to be the most expensive documentary ever made that didn’t involve music licensing. How can it not be equated with currying favour or an outright bribe?”

Thom Power, a documentary programmer, agreed that Amazon’s enormous payment for the film bore “no correlation to the marketplace”.

Jimmy Kimmel, the late-night TV host, echoed that assessment, bluntly calling Melania a “$75m bribe”.

According to inside sources at Amazon who spoke to The New York Times, some employees working for the company’s entertainment division had similar concerns. However, they were reportedly told that the project was mandated by the company’s leadership and thus employees could not opt out for political reasons.

Don Fox, the former acting director of the US Office of Government Ethics, told Rolling Stone that, given Bezos has business before the current government – for example, Amazon Web Services is a federal contractor, and his aerospace company, Blue Origin, has billion-dollar contracts with Nasa – this documentary deal runs the risk of looking “like it’s buying access and buying favour”. Bezos has also dined with Trump several times at his Florida residence of Mar-a-Lago and in 2024 donated $1m to his inauguration fund.

Andy Jassy, Amazon’s chief executive, and Mike Hopkins, the head of Amazon Studios, both attended a black-tie VIP screening of Melania at the White House, with the likes of Apple chief executive Tim Cook, Queen Rania of Jordan and boxer Mike Tyson. The event was soundly criticised for its tone-deaf timing: while guests were being given branded popcorn boxes and framed souvenir tickets, the US was reeling from both a deadly snowstorm and the fatal shooting of a protester in Minneapolis.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democrat congresswoman, was one of many who didn’t appreciate the timing. “Today, DHS [the Department of Homeland Security, of which ICE is an arm] assassinated a VA nurse in the street, Bondi is attempting to extort voter files, and half the country is bracing on the eve of a potentially crippling ice storm with Fema gutted,” she wrote on X. “So what is the president up to? Having a movie night at the White House.”

The film is also unlikely to escape censure when it has its official premiere, since that is taking place at the Trump-Kennedy Center in Washington DC – a venue to which Donald Trump’s name was added last December amid much rancour. Fairly or not, the documentary has become a lightning rod for the current fury directed at Trump’s entire administration.

Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez. Photo / 123RF

Surely that is not what the first lady had in mind when she agreed to share her experience in the 20-day run-up to the president’s second inauguration in 2025. Nor is the idea entirely without merit. There is keen interest in the inner workings of the White House and Melania, 55, remains an enigmatic figure and thus an object of fascination. As she says in the trailer for the documentary: “Everyone wants to know. So here it is.”

This film was never going to be a warts-and-all expose: Melania is an executive producer and wielded plenty of control. Her senior adviser and agent, Marc Beckman, who described her this week as “very detail-oriented”, revealed that Melania directed “the crew on set as to where to place the cameras” and got involved in the edit.

Still, there is a significant difference between a too-glossy, flattering film and the kind of hate magnet that this documentary has become. Although it would always have attracted scepticism, it is the involvement of Hollywood pariah Brett Ratner that seems to have sealed its fate.

The 56-year-old director and producer was once a major Hollywood power player, helming the buddy-cop franchise Rush Hour and superhero film X-Men: The Last Stand. He was also proudly a self-styled playboy: when he made a cameo in the TV series Entourage in 2011, his appearance was shot at his actual house, and featured 30 women in bikinis by his pool. Ratner joked that wasn’t quite accurate: “There are usually more like 50.”

He was “cancelled” for the first time in 2011 when he described sleeping with actor Lindsay Lohan “when she was really young” and for saying “rehearsal is for fags”. That led to his forced resignation from producing the Oscars.

But it was the rise of the #MeToo movement that led to his real defenestration in 2017. Seven women, including actors Olivia Munn and Natasha Henstridge, accused Ratner of sexual harassment and misconduct; Ratner denied the allegations. Actor Elliot Page then claimed on Facebook that Ratner had outed them as an 18-year-old during the filming of X-Men, in which Page starred, allegedly saying to a woman “You should f*** [Page] to make her realise she’s gay”. This was denied by Ratner, but Warner Bros subsequently declined to renew its co-producing deal with his company.

An exiled, disgraced director seems a bizarre choice to document the life of America’s first lady. Not only that, a source told news outlet Puck in February that Ratner was immediately welcomed into Mar-a-Lago as Melania’s personal guest, and lived there in an eight-bedroom house while working on the film. Another source suggested to Puck that far from being put off by his current circumstances, Melania liked the idea of him as an “outcast”.

It’s also notable that Ratner, who has a history of cultivating beneficial relationships with wealthy and powerful figures, has several connections among the Trumps’ acquaintances – despite having donated to Democrats, such as Hillary Clinton, in the past. Ratner previously partnered with investment banker Steven Mnuchin, who served as treasury secretary during President Trump’s first term, and his father figure (he never knew his biological father), lawyer Al Malnik, frequents Mar-a-Lago: Malnik’s son Jarod got married there in 2024.

Still, industry figures were astonished to learn that Ratner had been chosen to direct the Melania documentary, and it has apparently made for a fraught filming process. “I thought I was being ‘punked’,” one veteran agent told Puck.

Nor has it, apparently, made for a happy filming process. One crew member alleged to Rolling Stone this week that it was “highly disorganised, very chaotic”, with the frantic co-ordination of three separate crews in Washington DC, New York and Florida. Another said candidly: “Brett Ratner was the worst part of working on this project.”

Another member of the film’s staff said that, in contrast, Melania was fine to work with: “She was the opposite of Brett Ratner.” In his defence, one Melania insider told Rolling Stone that Ratner is “an intuitive, incredible, emotional, intelligent director, and you will see that on the screen”.

Nonetheless, a source estimated that two thirds of the crew members who worked on the film in New York asked to have their names taken off the documentary’s credits.

Yet further embarrassment may be looming for Amazon. Tim Richards, the chief executive of cinema chain Vue, told The Daily Telegraph this week that ticket sales for Melania have been “soft”. He also shared that the biggest customer response was complaints about the chain showing the film at all.

The news isn’t much better in the US: National Research Group is projecting an opening weekend box office of just $5m, while Boxoffice Pro puts it at a measly $1-2m. It’s a far cry from the president’s claim on Truth Social that tickets are “selling out, FAST!”. Although one disillusioned crew member did admit to Rolling Stone that if the documentary flops, “I would really feel great about it”.

The film has already been the victim of savage “review-bombing” on cinephile social platform Letterboxd, with users (who haven’t actually seen the film) leaving comments such as, “If they showed this on a plane, people would still walk out”, and “Would rather take a bullet to the leg than watch this Nazi garbage”.

In reference to an infamous jacket Melania wore in 2018 while visiting a migrant child detention centre, one wag writes: “I really don’t care. Do u?”. Posters for the film have also been defaced, with one vandal drawing a Hitler moustache on Melania and writing “Eva Braun”.

A black-tie VIP screening of Melania was held at the White House on Saturday night, with Amazon executives among the guests. Photo / X, Melania Trump

This is unarguably horrendous timing for an obsequious documentary to be released, as Trump faces the biggest crisis of his presidency amid growing anger and unrest across the country. Yet the documentary itself, which Amazon clearly believes will be streamed by the millions planning to skip it in cinemas, could yet prove an interesting watch. Amazon has said: “We licensed the film for one reason and one reason only: because we think customers are going to love it.”

There are universally acclaimed craftspeople involved, including cinematographers Jeff Cronenweth and Dante Spinotti – regular collaborators with, respectively, David Fincher and Michael Mann, both respected directors. Documentary maker Stefano Da Fre told CNN this week: “Don’t be surprised if this movie is actually extremely engaging and well made, as Ratner’s last chance to get back in with a highly sought-after Hollywood crowd.”

Interestingly, Beckman revealed that Melania selected a private interaction between her and the President to feature in the trailer. In the exchange, he asks “Did you watch it?”, seemingly referring to some high-profile announcement of his, and she replies: “I did not. I will see it on the news.” Beckman characterised this as showing an unfamiliar facet of their relationship, with Melania as “the chief executive, busy with other things”.

President Trump, naturally, has described the documentary as “incredible”. Whether audiences far beyond his inner circle concur remains to be seen.

However, Bezos may well feel his gambit has paid off. Melania might be considered a flop by normal film metrics, with a reportedly reviled director and disgruntled crew, but if it cements Bezos’ place in Trump’s inner circle and wins him the President’s gratitude, that is worth a whole lot more to Amazon’s bottom line than any box-office haul or shiny Hollywood trophy.

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