Amazon Pulls Melania Documentary From Oregon Cinema After Snarky Marketing

An independent cinema in Oregon says Amazon pulled its documentary about Melania Trump after objecting to the theatre’s tongue-in-cheek marketing.

According to the Lake Oswego Review, the general manager of Lake Theater & Cafe was told future screenings of the authorised film—directed by Brett Ratner—would be cancelled. The reason, he says, was the wording used to promote the movie.

The theatre had advertised the documentary with playful marquee lines like, “To defeat your enemy. You must know them. Melania” and “Does Melania wear Prada? Find out on Friday!”

Writing on Instagram, general manager Jordan Perry said Amazon executives were unhappy with the tone. “Got a call that the higher ups were upset with how our marquee marketed their movie,” he wrote, adding that Sunday would be the film’s last day at the cinema.

Perry also joked that he hoped Amazon would not cancel his Prime membership and encouraged loyal Amazon fans to “show your support at Whole Foods instead.”

Responding to criticism over why he booked the film at all, Perry explained his thinking in a post titled Why I, Jordan, Got Melania Here. He said the decision was partly practical and partly humorous.

“The film marketplace this week and next were a desert,” he wrote. “So, to fill a screen, why not get this inexplicable vanity piece from the current president’s wife? It just seemed so weird that it even exists—and even weirder, in a funny way, to show it at our anti-establishment neighbourhood cinema.”

The cancellation comes amid wider debate in the US about the film’s box office performance. Melania reportedly earned $7 million during its opening weekend and debuted at No. 3 on the US box office chart. However, some commentators have questioned how those numbers were achieved, pointing to reports of half-empty cinemas.

The Daily Beast cited claims that blocks of tickets may have been bought in bulk and then given away to senior centres and political groups to boost sales figures. Industry analyst Tom Brueggemann suggested this practice may have helped inflate the opening weekend numbers.

At the same time, Puck reporter Matthew Belloni said Amazon and major cinema chains AMC and Regal told him they had not seen unusual bulk ticket purchases—though he noted theatres may not always know who ultimately pays for tickets.

Audience data from early US screenings suggested that “older white women” made up the core audience.

Internationally, the picture looks very different. In the UK, the film opened on 155 screens but ranked just No. 29, with an average weekend take of $286 per cinema. Almost 99% of the film’s global earnings so far have come from the US, with Slovenia—Melania Trump’s birthplace—emerging as its strongest overseas market.

The documentary opened in 26 countries worldwide, although its South African release was abruptly cancelled the day before opening, with distributors citing “the current climate” and “recent developments.”

Some UK industry insiders have also questioned whether the film’s wide release points to “four-walling,” a strategy where distributors pay cinemas directly to screen a movie, regardless of ticket demand.

For now, the controversy has only added to the strange journey of a film that, as one cinema manager put it, many people are still asking: who actually wanted this movie—and why?