I was in Barcelona last weekend. One of the world’s best cities.
It also happened to be the opening weekend of Melania, the new documentary about Melania Trump, and the promotion was impossible to miss. A massive billboard dominated Plaça de Catalunya. Every bus stop seemed to have her face on it. Amazon money, very visibly at work.
By most accounts, Melania had a big opening weekend — albeit always caveated with that familiar phrase: “big for a documentary”.
But something didn’t add up.
Despite the billboards, the posters, the hype, the supposed box-office success, the film wasn’t showing in a single cinema in Barcelona. None.
When I got back to the UK, it wasn’t showing in Durham. Or Newcastle. Or anywhere nearby.
So we had a supposedly successful, heavily marketed movie that you couldn’t actually watch.
A massive movie, doing well at the box office, which is essentially unavailable.
To understand what’s going on here, it helps to go back a few years to a 2023 film called Sound of Freedom.
The Template:
Sound of Freedom
Sound of Freedom starred Jim Caviezel and Mira Sorvino. It was a half-arsed B-movie about a former US government agent rescuing children from sex traffickers in Colombia.
It didn’t premiere at major festivals. It wasn’t picked up by a serious distributor. It looked, sounded, and felt like exactly what it was.
And yet it went on to gross around $250 million on a $10 million budget, making it one of the most lucrative independent films of all time.
There’s a reason you’ve probably never seen it.
It’s terrible. Not “misunderstood”, not “rough but sincere”. Just bad. A film so lacking in confidence that the producer cast himself in a major role — always a warning sign.
It made money not because people watched it, but because people were persuaded to buy tickets as a political act.
The marketing was the whole point.
The film was promoted aggressively in MAGA and QAnon circles as proof that their lurid paedophile conspiracy theories were true. Viewers were encouraged to “pay it forward”, buying extra tickets for friends, family — even for “libtards” who needed “red-pilling”.
Social media and Facebook groups were flooded with exhortations to buy multiple tickets, whether or not anyone actually went to the cinema.
This is how a film shown on a limited number of screens, often to half-empty theatres, could still post blockbuster-level box-office numbers.
Once upon a time, to make money at the movies you had to get people to watch them.
Now, you can make money from movies that barely exist as viewing experiences at all.
The Economics of Melania
This is the context in which Melania makes sense.
Economically, the film is absurd as a documentary. Amazon reportedly paid around $40 million for the rights, with total spending — including marketing — closer to $75 million. That alone makes it one of the most expensive documentaries ever made.
The box office numbers, even if framed as “strong for a documentary”, are irrelevant. Theatrical receipts were never the point.
Crucially, Melania Trump reportedly received around $28 million from the deal. That tells you almost everything you need to know.
From Amazon’s perspective, this isn’t a content investment in the normal sense. It’s not about recouping costs through ticket sales, rentals, or even streaming engagement.
It’s about:
- buying access and goodwill in Trump-adjacent political space
- positioning Amazon as neutral — or at least non-hostile — ahead of a possible third Trump presidency
- signalling to powerful actors that Amazon can be “reasonable” when required
The marketing spend isn’t there to drive audiences into cinemas. It’s there to:
- create the appearance of cultural importance
- generate headlines about success
- make the film feel unavoidable, even if it’s practically unavailable
In that sense, the billboards matter more than the screenings.
This is political economy, not film economics. The film is the mechanism, not the product.
Movies as Financial Instruments
Melania and Sound of Freedom sit on the same spectrum.
They are not primarily cultural objects. They are vehicles for money, signalling, and alignment.
In one case, a film becomes a way for an audience to donate to a cause and feel morally righteous without actually engaging with the work.
In the other, a film becomes a way for a corporation to move large sums of money, flatter powerful people, and purchase insulation against future political risk.
Whether anyone watches is secondary.
We’re used to thinking of box office as a proxy for popularity, and popularity as a proxy for cultural impact. That logic no longer holds.
Today, you can have:
- a hit movie no one sees
- a box-office success with no audience
- a documentary whose real audience is one person
And if you’re wondering why Melania was everywhere in Barcelona but nowhere on a screen, that’s your answer.
The film wasn’t made to be watched. It was made to be paid for.