Melania is an upcoming American documentary film co-produced and directed by Brett Ratner. It documents Melania Trump, the first lady of the United States, in the twenty days before her husband Donald Trump's second presidential inauguration. == Production == === Development === Days after the 2024 presidential election, Melania Trump signed on as an executive producer for a documentary about her. Melania stated that her impetus for creating the film was a warm reception to her 2024 memoir of the same name. In January 2025, Amazon MGM Studios announced that Brett Ratner would direct a documentary about Melania. Fernando Sulichin was brought on as an executive producer. Amazon, Disney, Netflix, and Paramount Pictures bid for the streaming rights to the film. Disney's offered around $14 million, but lost to Amazon's bid of $40 million to license the film and produce a follow-up docuseries on Melania. This was the highest price ever paid for a documentary. Melania earned $28 million from the film. Ted Hope, who launched Amazon's film division, stated that this it was probably the most expensive documentary without music licensing. Melania is Ratner's first film since numerous women accused him of sexual misconduct in 2017. Ratner was the only person considered for the job. He produced the pro-Trump documentary The Man You Don’t Know in 2024. === Filming === Filming for the documentary began in December 2024, and months of filming was done in Mar-a-Lago. Melania held editorial control over the film and was involved with the trailer, color correction, selection of music, the advertising campaign, and designed the logo. Amazon employees were told they could not opt out of working on Melania "for political reasons". Two-thirds of the New York production crew staff requested to be not included in the credits. Numerous criticisms were made of Ratner's conduct during filming. == Marketing == A trailer for Melania was released on December 17, 2025. The marketing budget was reported to be $35 million, far higher than marketing for other documentaries, but the production has denied this figure. RBG had a marketing budget of $3 million. From December 22, 2025 to January 23, 2026, Amazon spent $3.5 million on national linear TV ads. The poster photograph was shot by Ellen von Unwerth. == Release == Melania will premiere at the Kennedy Center and other screenings for friends and supporters of Melania will be done across 20 cities on January 29, 2026. Amazon MGM Studios will release the film on January 30, in 2,000 theatres domestically and 5,000 worldwide. A theatrical release was required as part of Amazon MGM Studios' purchase of distribution rights. Melania is expected to be available for streaming three to four weeks after its theatrical debut. FilmNation Entertainment will distribute the film in over 20 countries. Filmfinity planned on releasing the film in South Africa, but cancelled the release on January 28. It will be released in over 100 cinemas in the United Kingdom. Prior to the premiere of the film, a screening and dinner was held at the White House with 70 guests in attendance. Queen Rania of Jordan, Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook, Amazon MGM Studios's Mike Hopkins, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, New York Stock Exchange President Lynn Martin, self-help writer Tony Robbins, AMD CEO Lisa Su, boxer Mike Tyson, and Zoom CEO Eric Yuan were among the guests. A makeshift theater was used as the usual screening room was demolished with the rest of the East Wing. A military band played "Melania's Waltz" composed by Tony Neiman as guests were greeted. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized the White House's decision to hold the premiere in the context of the recent killing of Alex Pretti and an impending major snowstorm. == Reception == === Box office === Boxoffice Pro estimates that Melania will make $1–2 million in its opening weekend while the National Research Group estimates that it will earn $5 million domestically. Vue International reported that tickets sales were "soft" in the United Kingdom and that most of the showings sold no tickets. The largest AMC Theatre in Boston reported two days before release that one ticket was sold over three showtimes, while theaters in smaller cities such as Plano, Texas were nearly sold out. === Critical response === Mother Jones reported that prior to Melania's release, the film was negatively review bombed on Letterboxd, a social cataloging application for films. All of the reviews were subsequently removed, which Letterboxd attributed to correcting an incorrect release date pulled from another movie database. Julie Cohen, who co-directed RBG (2018) and My Name Is Pauli Murray (2021), criticized the film as having no artistic or journalistic integrity due to Melania's editorial control. == See also == Melania (memoir) == References == == External links == Official website Melania at IMDb