How Amazon’s ‘Melania’ confounded critics and overperformed at the box office —with help from red states

During my (relatively brief) couple year stint as a VP of film development in between working for Variety and Page Six, I once had dinner with a former LA studio exec who’d relocated to Bentonville, Arkansas, to work in marketing for Walmart.

After I’d mentioned the projects my company was hoping to get made, he spent the meal strongly warning that what Hollywood studios were developing, and what America was buying via Walmart home video at the time, couldn’t be more different.

This was years before Trump took office. But the trend continues with “Melania.”

Donald Trump and Melania Trump attend the world premiere of “Melania.” Getty Images

Showing the disparity between coastal elites and moviegoers, the Amazon MGM film on the First Lady had an abysmal 10% fresh rating from top critics on its “Tomatometer,” but a 99% fresh rating from fans on its “Popcornmeter” — which has posts from verified ticket buyers.

On Friday, P6H was also being forwarded those alleged Craig’s List ads offering to pay people to attend the Boston premiere of “Melania” — including the real-sounding caveat that paid audience members couldn’t walk out of the theater if they wanted to collect their booty. There were also lots of posts on social media showing seat maps of theaters with swaths of empty spots as an alleged sign that the project was DOA at the box office. (The Boston Globe reported on Friday that some local theaters had zero tickets sold, while one had just two seats snapped up.)

Melania Trump kept it classy to the premiere of her self-named Amazon documentary. Getty Images

But by Sunday, the movie made over $7 million, the biggest opening for a non-fiction feature in the last decade. Outlets were left wondering if the results were boosted by group ticket sales. (Fun fact: The New York Times best-seller list puts a dagger symbol next to top-performing books that were mysteriously bought in bulk by their authors or those close to them to boost numbers. One publishing source of ours calls it “the dirty dagger.”) “Melania”‘s overperformance came from theaters in Florida, Texas and Arizona — while markets like New York and LA underperformed.

Reports predicted the film could make as little as $1M. Over at Puck, Matt Belloni went against the grain last week, saying that the film was on track for $5M. (A source close to the project told us that Amazon MGM didn’t actually have any traditional tracking numbers itself going into the weekend, but felt the film would do well based on its own in-house secret sauce recipe mojo.)

“Melania” ticket sales were best with women over 45, and the film opened at No. 3 for the weekend, beating out Jason Statham’s new action film, “Shelter” and its more male-skewing audience. (Back in the day, I was the Box Office editor at Variety, as my old editor and mentor Peter Bart made me do it! And I was up every Sunday slicing and dicing the numbers, so I can’t help but tell you here that another female-led project, A24’s Charli XCX mockumentary, “The Moment,” also did well, but on just four screens, as the pop star makes a foray into the film biz. One to watch.)

But the weekend wasn’t all good news for one major player in the “Melania” movie. Director Brett Ratner, who has been hatching a Hollywood comeback, was caught up in the DOJ’s latest Epstein files dump. The Post reported that the “Rush Hour” creator was seen in a newly released pic on a couch with his arms wrapped around a mysterious woman — as eerie Epstein sat on the other side with another woman. (Ratner has yet to comment on the pic.)

Days before the revelation, in photos from the “Melania” premiere in Washington, DC, a smiling Ratner was seen with a new look in a black tux with a monochromatic black shirt, possibly having been sent to the Trump family hairdressers as he had the signature combed-back style of Eric, Don. Jr. and Barron, who emulate their dad’s younger ’80s power do