1 hour ago
1
An independent cinema in Oregon has claimed Amazon pulled screenings of their documentary about Melania Trump in protest at the cinema’s marketing strategy.
As reported by local newspaper the Lake Oswego Review, the general manager of the Lake Theater & Cafe has claimed the corporation cancelled future screenings of Brett Ratner’s authorised study of the first lady after being alerted to promotional pushes such as: “To defeat your enemy. You must know them. Melania” and “Does Melania wear Prada? Find out on Friday!”
Writing on the cinema’s Instagram, Jordan Perry said: “Got a call that the higher ups (ie, at Amazon) were upset with how our marquee marketed their movie (ie, Melania), that, per them, Sunday would be its last day here.”
Perry added that he hoped Amazon wouldn’t cancel his Prime membership and directed devoted Amazon fans to “show your support at Whole Foods instead”. The cinema owner also addressed those who had criticised his decision to show the film in the first place.
In a post titled Why I, Jordan, Got Melania Here,” Perry wrote that his overriding instinct was that the programming “would be funny”. There was also a financial imperative, he added: “The film marketplace this week and next were a desert … So, to fill a screen, why not get this inexplicable vanity piece from the current president’s wife? I mean, it just seems so weird that it even exists (who wants a movie about Melania lol?), and wouldn’t it then be exponentially weirder, to the point of being funny, to show it here, at your obviously anti-establishment, occasionally troublemaking, neighbourhood cinema?”
Amazon’s cancellation of the film in the Oregon cinema comes as some in the US have flagged the incongruity of healthy ticket sales and apparently empty cinemas.
The film took $7m (£5.1m) over its opening weekend domestically and opened at No 3 in the US box office charts. The Daily Beast reports that there have been accusations of “fake tickets sales” to boost the box office totals.
Citing the Substack of industry pundit Tom Brueggemann, the article claims: “Industry sources say there were signs that blocks of tickets were purchased for the weekend, then distributed to senior citizen homes, Republican activitists, other interested parties for free to help boost audiences.”
Meanwhile Puck reporter Matthew Belloni said Amazon and cinema chains AMC and Regal told him that they “did not experience unusual block purchases of tickets” for the film, while adding “the theatre chains might not necessarily know, of course”.
Exit reports from weekend screenings in the US suggested that “older white women” were the demographic most responsible for propelling it to success.
In the UK, where Melania opened across 155 screens, takings were considerably softer. The film opened at No 29 in the UK charts, for a weekend screen average of £212.
The US takings for the film currently account for some 98.8% of its overall total, with Melania’s native Slovenia proving the best-performing international territory.
In the UK, some industry insiders questioned whether the unusually wide rollout of the film could be an indication of “four-walling”: the release strategy by which distributors pay cinemas to screen the movie.
