Michelle Obama documentary rises 13,000% in views as Melania film opens | Documentary films
Michelle Obama’s 2020 documentary Becoming saw a huge spike in viewership the same weekend Melania was released in theaters.
The film, which follows the former First Lady in the wake of her popular book, saw a more than 13,000% increase in viewership and 47.5 million minutes watched last weekend. Hollywood Reporter. According to Luminate, only 354,000 minutes were watched the previous weekend.
Made by Amazon for $40 million and with an advertising spend of $35 million, Melania earned $7 million in its first weekend at the US box office, the best opening for a documentary in over a decade.
The film, which the Guardian’s
Melania currently has a 5% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to Becoming, which has a 93% rating.
Melania’s audience was overwhelmingly white women over 55.
Brett Ratner, the director of the film who was accused of sexual abuse by multiple women in 2017, defended This week, he was also arrested after being seen in a photo with Jeffrey Epstein in the latest release of documents.
“I didn’t have a personal relationship with him,” he said. “I didn’t know him… You get yourself into these things. This is crazy. Terrible.”
On Wednesday, Melania met with freed Israeli American hostages at the White House and attached his documentary. She talked about her meeting with Aviva Siegel in January 2025 when she was trying to free her husband Keith.
“It was recorded on camera and will be available to watch in my new movie, Melania,” he told the press. “It was very emotional.”
He later claimed it was “not a promotion”.
I saw the owner of an Oregon movie theater this week uncover He said Amazon pulled Melania from its theater after she made jokes about the movie in the tent. The Lake Theater and Café in Lake Oswego introduced the film with the words: “To defeat your enemy, you must know him. Melania opens Friday.”
