News · 30 January 2026
Expensive Melania documentary premieres to empty seats in UK
Joyce N. Boghosian via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
Brett Ratner’s $40 million documentary Melania premiered with a lavish black-carpet event in Washington, attended by political figures like Mike Johnson and Robert F. Kennedy. However, the film’s UK public debut faced a starkly different reception. At a 9:40 am screening in Sittingbourne, a Guardian reporter was the sole attendee in the 34-seat theater. The Amazon-backed project, covering the days before the 2025 inauguration, opened to mysteriously empty cinemas despite its high-profile US launch.
Reported by The Guardian · How we write briefs