WASHINGTON, February 4, 2026
Obama Doc Sees Viewership Surge as ‘Melania’ Film Falters
A documentary about the former first lady experienced a massive increase in views the same weekend a new film about her husband’s wife debuted in theaters.
- Michelle Obama’s 2020 documentary, Becoming, saw a more than 13,000% jump in viewership.
- Melania, despite a $40 million production budget and $35 million ad spend, opened with $7 million at the U.S. box office.
- The film has received largely negative reviews, with a 5% rating on Rotten Tomatoes compared too Becoming‘s 93%.
- Director Brett Ratner recently defended himself following the release of documents linking him to Jeffrey Epstein.
Michelle Obama’s 2020 documentary, Becoming, experienced a dramatic surge in viewership over the weekend coinciding with the theatrical release of a new film about Melania Trump. The film, which chronicles the former first lady following the success of her memoir, saw a staggering increase of over 13,000% in views, totaling 47.5 million minutes watched, according to reports. The previous weekend saw only 354,000 minutes viewed, data from Luminate shows.
What is the current Rotten Tomatoes score for the Melania documentary? The film currently holds a dismal 5% rating on Rotten tomatoes, a stark contrast to the 93% approval rating enjoyed by Becoming.
Melania,backed by Amazon with a $40 million production budget and a $35 million advertising campaign,earned $7 million during its opening weekend at the U.S. box office-the best debut for a documentary in over a decade. However, the film’s international performance has been lackluster, debuting at number 29 in the United Kingdom and number 31 in Australia.
Critics have been largely unimpressed. Xan Brooks of the guardian described the film as “a gilded trash remake of Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest” in a zero-star review.The audience demographic for Melania was overwhelmingly white women over the age of 55.
Adding another layer to the narrative, melania Trump herself leveraged the film’s release during a public appearance on Wednesday. She met with freed israeli-American hostages at the White House and used the opportunity to promote her documentary, referencing a January 2025 meeting with Aviva Siegel as she attempted to secure the release of her husband, Keith.
“It was captured on camera and available to see in my new film Melania,” she told reporters, though she later insisted it was “not a promotion.”
The film also encountered resistance from at least one autonomous cinema owner. The owner of The Lake Theater and Cafe in Lake Oswego, Oregon, revealed that Amazon pulled Melania from his theater after he playfully advertised it on the marquee with the message: “To defeat your enemy you must know them. Melania starts Friday.”
