Trump Thinks This 12 months’s ‘No. 1’ Film Was … ‘Melania’?
Photograph-Illustration: Intelligencer; Pictures: Sony/Marvel, Getty Pictures
Motion pictures are so again. 2026 has been Hollywood’s finest 12 months on the field workplace for the reason that pandemic. And it’s all because of the Trumps!
No, not as a result of Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster The Odyssey is a three-hour critique of how Donald Trump’s xenophobia is plunging us right into a darkish age of battle and illiteracy. Throughout a speech in Nevada on Wednesday night time, the president bragged that First Woman Melania Trump really had the highest movie of the 12 months.
“She did a film — I believe it was the No. 1 film of the 12 months. Are you able to consider it?”
Nicely, no. Until Melania quietly did some stuntwork for Tom Holland, she was not within the top-earning film of 2026, Spider-Man: Model-New Day. That movie has grossed $1.155 billion worldwide in its first week, breaking varied box-office information. Throughout its total theatrical run, the First Woman’s documentary made slightly below $17 million worldwide, far under the $75 million Amazon MGM Studios reportedly paid for the movie rights and promotion. Regardless of Jeff Bezos’s claims on the contrary, Melania didn’t even try this nicely in comparison with different Amazon movies; this 12 months, the studio had its greatest hit ever with Challenge Hail Mary, which grossed $684 million worldwide.
Melania’s $7 million box-office debut in January did make it the most effective opening for a documentary within the final decade. And it was briefly the highest movie on Amazon Prime after its March 9 streaming premiere. However as USA Right now famous, it didn’t even prime the listing of most-watched movies throughout all streaming companies in its first week:
In line with Nielsen Streaming Content material Scores, “Melania” positioned seventh within the prime 10 streaming films its first week on Prime with 230 million minutes of viewing. Compared, the highest film – “Zootopia 2” – scored 1,715 minutes on Disney+ adopted by Netflix’s “Conflict Machine” with 989.
Maybe the president is simply optimistic about the way forward for Melania movie endeavors, since there’s nonetheless extra to come back.
Again in January 2025, Puck reported that the $40 million Amazon paid to license the Melania movie included each the Brett Ratner–directed documentary and a “two-to-three-episode follow-up docuseries on the First Woman.”
Info on the docuseries has been scant. However throughout an look on the conservative media community Actual America’s Voice this week, the First Woman’s unique senior adviser, Marc Beckman, mentioned it’s dropping quickly.
“This fall, we’re following the movie with a docuseries surrounding the First Woman, surrounding Melania Trump,” Beckman mentioned. “It’s a very completely different take a look at her world. It’s a shot fully completely different, and it provides the viewers just a little little bit of a peek as to what occurs proper originally of the brand new forty seventh presidential administration. You would possibly bear in mind in case you noticed the movie, we solely seize 20 days of the First Woman’s life. We open the window just a little bit into her non-public life, her marriage, her household.”
It’s unclear what any of which means. Have been the film and docuseries filmed at completely different occasions? How is it shot “fully completely different”? Is the sequence going straight to Prime, or will it get a theatrical launch too?
If that’s the case, Melania’s new movie mission simply must earn $1.14 billion to catch as much as Spider-Man: Model-New Day and make President Trump’s daring assertion true. That appears unlikely, however you already know what they are saying: With nice energy comes nice delusion.
