Melania documentay sets record for largest-ever gap between critics' scores and audience ratings | The Independent
By: Brittany Miller (The Independent)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The First Lady's documentary was released in theaters last Friday
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Melania Trump's new documentary, Melania , has broken a Rotten Tomatoes record for the biggest discrepancy between critics' scores and audience ratings in the last 27 years.
Since its release, reviews have been largely negative, with the film sitting at a measly 10 percent on the platform. However, viewers on the reviewing site have given the documentary a 99 percent, in an apparent demonstration of support for Trump.
In a one-star review for The Independent , Nick Hilton wrote: "Perhaps Melania is merely a piece of post-modern post-entertainment. After all, it is transparently not a documentary."
Hilton continues: "Melania spends most scenes playing a staged version of herself, and shots of the first lady are composed with all the deliberateness Ratner brought to his work on X-Men: The Last Stand . This is somewhere between reality TV and pure fiction."
However, audience members were generally interested in seeing the work behind the first lady's lead-up to Inauguration Day, with one Rotten Tomatoes user writing, "A very private look at the work put in before inauguration. Shows her commitment to the children in need."
(Muse Films)
"Nothing to dislike," another five-star Rotten Tomatoes user wrote. "What an amazing movie from our beloved First Lady. I highly recommend everyone go see this film. It is inspiring whether you are male, female, left or right!!"
Other similar examples of large gaps between critic reviews and audience ratings include Transformers , which scored 57 percent with critics but 85 percent with audiences, and the 1999 film The Chosen , which critics also disliked at 26 percent as audiences raved, giving it a 91 percent.
The gap in reviews comes after the box office numbers of the documentary were revealed last weekend. Melania had exceeded box office predictions on its opening day, grossing $2.9 million from 1,778 theaters.
Speaking to reporters at the film's premiere at the Kennedy Center last week, President Donald Trump played down reports of weak ticket sales for the film.
"It's a very tough business in theaters selling movie tickets after Covid," he said. "I think this will do unbelievable — streaming and everything. Theaters are a different world."
While analysts predicted the controversial film to make between $1 million and $5 million through its opening weekend, Variety reports it is on course to bank around $8.1 million.
Although the film has performed better than expected, it is still unlikely to recoup the $40 million Amazon MGM paid for it. Amazon reportedly spent an additional $35 million to market the film.
Melania will stream on Prime Video at a later date.
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They need to vet Rotten Tomatoes users.
I swear to Pete that the MAGA faithful will glorify and gold plate any kind of shit that trmp hands them. And then they will obediently eat it
organ donors, compost, and soil enhancers ...
I was going to go see it but I'm not into porn.
I'm waiting for it to be reformatted into an instructional carpet cleaning video with clips from her past ...
I'm already work-shopping some titles ...
carpet cleaning?
please tell me what that means
wtf? did you attend a xtian college or what? carpet cleaner is slang for lesbian ...
oh wait, you'd definitely know what that term meant if you did ... apologies ...
No...I lived a sheltered life until I went to college. Just never heard that term before. I've heard of carpet muncher
do you mean there weren't any zoomies in the air farce trying really hard to grow a mustache?
just a few women. One of the women I knew who worked in the Acute Care Clinic was a CPR instructor and got me into it. She made rank (E6) then chucked it all to get out and go back to school to to be a nurse. The last time I saw her she had gone full butch. This was about the time of Clinton's don't ask don't tell
We have a Tongue and Groove store not far from us... unfortunately it doesn't have anything to do with lesbians... it does have plenty of wood though.
perfect name for a lesbian bar ...
when I worked in the restaurant biz, most of my work friends were gay, because they were the most fun to be around and had advanced senses of humor ...
I bought my first home from a gay real estate agent that was a close friend in the early 80's. most of the family that was the generation older than me were horrified, but they already knew by then that I thought much less of walking and talking republican excrement than they ever thought of any others ...
the film would've done much better if the director hadn't cut the part where she was getting tag-teamed by trump and putin ...
Melania’s Movie Shows Signs of Bulk Buying to Boost Box Office: Guru
that's the only way any of their media scams get any public traction ...
From Quora Digest:
she and her defective spawn are the weakest links in the trump crime family ...
This movie made a whopping $7M in it's opening against a $27M budget.
I thought the budget was 40 million?
Even still...that's a big loss.
I was incorrect - According to Google - Amazon bought the movie for a filming budget of $40M... they added another $35M in marketing. It's noted as the highest grossing opening of a non-music documentary at $7M in 1,178 theaters. It beat projections of $2M to $5M.
Highest attendance was in the South... Dallas, Orlando, Tampa, Phoenix, Houston, Atlanta, and West Palm Beach.
So...75 mill outlay on this thing. 7 mill opening day. It has to keep that momentum to make any kind of profit
I doubt it will. I'm sure Amazon knew they would take a loss when they bought it. Historically there are very few movies that sustain, or increase, momentum. None of them were documentaries.
... where gay porn is most popular. I bet those goobers were disappointed.
2/3's of that was probably kickbacks ...
I read that it was mostly old conservative women who went and saw it. They were the ones gushing over it on Rotten Tomatoes. Their husbands probably bought their tickets and gave them pocket money for dinner after. These are the same blue hairs around me. They don;t think for themselves and do what their husbands and churches tell them to do
It's definitely a bribe so Bezos can escape tariffs
Again... according to the googles...
ie: those most likely to have buried a scandalous past ...
Interesting how the tickets were purchased in large blocks rather than at the ticket office. These tickets were then given away. Almost like some rich folk were trying to make it seem like it was a must see event.
most likely part of the initial advertising budget. when I worked for a record distributor in the 70's there was a venue downtown the industry would use for breaking artists called ebbett's field. if advance ticket sales were lagging for a new artist or band, the label would send the A&R guy out with free passes to fill the venue.
This whole thing is so perfectly Trumpian...
Completely divorced from reality.
My favorite review: “If this movie were shown on a plane, people would still walk out.”
I read that large blocks of tickets were bought and given to nursing homes and assisted living facilities as gifts. Not /s.
That is hilarious.
That's what right wing groups do with books. Like, when Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh published a book these groups would buy up large quantities just to get them on the NY Times best seller list. I bet these tickets were all about getting those numbers up so it didn't look like a wash right out of the gate
If there’s a dishonest way to represent something, Republicans will pounce on it.
the first week's box office results were probably in the initial movie budget ...
that story was confirmed as fact this last weekend ...
MAGA have a thing for plagiarism, don't they?
Original thought is not something MAGA indulges in...
that would require a working brain cell, Bob
More reviews:
melania was allegedly paid $27 million to do it ...
What does she need money for? And should she be taking money for stuff like that when her pimp is still in office?
she's going to need that money to survive outside the US when she gets deported. the emoluments clause in the constitution doesn't mean anything to the family of a criminal/traitor/child molester ...