U.S. first lady Melania Trump promotes Amazon MGM Studios' upcoming documentary film "Melania" at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), in New York City, U.S., January 28, 2026. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
(New York, New York) – Melania: Twenty Days to History blew past opening-weekend projections, hauling in more than $7 million at the box office – despite intense criticism from left-leaning activists, hostile reviews, and online calls to boycott the film.
The documentary, centered on First Lady Melania Trump, was expected to earn closer to $5 million, a respectable figure for a political documentary. Instead, it outperformed estimates and delivered the strongest opening for a non-music documentary in over a decade, according to box-office analysts.
Distributed by Amazon MGM Studios, the film opened in more than 1,500 theaters nationwide and landed third overall for the weekend, trailing only YouTuber Markiplier’s Iron Lung and Sam Raimi’s Send Help.
The strong debut comes in direct contrast to the film’s reception among critics and left-wing online communities, where the documentary was widely mocked before release. On Letterboxd, users flooded the page with negative ratings — many posted prior to seeing the film — while screenshots of empty theaters circulated on social media in an attempt to downplay its performance.
Major outlets echoed the criticism, with The Hollywood Reporter branding the film “expensive propaganda.” Yet audiences told a very different story.
Moviegoers awarded Melania an A CinemaScore and a 99% Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes, signaling overwhelming approval from ticket buyers. Roughly 600,000 people saw the film during its opening weekend, according to EntTelligence data.
The documentary performed strongest in Dallas, Orlando, Tampa, Phoenix, Houston, Atlanta, and West Palm Beach — markets that strongly favored Donald Trump in the 2024 election. Women made up approximately 70% of the audience, according to analysts.
While Amazon reportedly spent $40 million to acquire the film and another $35 million on marketing — an unusually large investment for a political documentary — studio executives framed the debut as the beginning of a longer run, extending into streaming and a planned docuseries.
Despite relentless criticism from the left and a hostile press cycle, Melania: Twenty Days to History delivered a clear message at the box office: the audience showed up anyway.
