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spooky3

(38,859 posts)
Sat May 16, 2026, 09:51 AM Saturday

My firestick keeps urging me to watch "Melania" so

I thought I’d check out how this film is doing.

From Wikipedia:

“ The film received overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics, who criticized its self-promotional or propagandistic nature. Its high production and marketing costs, paid by Amazon, fostered discussion about the motivations behind its financing and distribution. The film was a box-office bomb, grossing $16.7 million on a $40 million production budget.”

ETTD

7 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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hlthe2b

(114,669 posts)
1. Is Amazon Prime Video allowing reviews on it? I haven't looked because I don't want
Sat May 16, 2026, 09:59 AM
Saturday

Amazon to start "recommending" it to me. EVER...

haele

(15,592 posts)
3. I think it's an algorithm situation. Our fire stick doesn't recommend it...
Sat May 16, 2026, 10:16 AM
Saturday

Before that propaganda piece came out, we (and anyone else on the Amazon Fire streaming infrastructure were seeing ads for it, but after we ignored it and went on with the normal watching habits, it plummeted off the list.

That sort of movie just isn't the type we would watch; even though we are interested in fact based documentaries, history and action/fantasy, we aren't really into Legal or Political Procedurals, RomComs, or Lifestyles of the Privileged, Rich and Corrupted.

On edit - or anything Brett Ratner does.


Takket

(23,801 posts)
4. true it lost money but as i keep pointing out.....
Sat May 16, 2026, 10:24 AM
Saturday

the vanity project for melania was never meant to make money, nor was it ever expected to make money. Bezos didn't make this film because he thought it was a good idea and people would enjoy it. he made it as a direct payout/bribe to drumpf in return for favorable regulations/contracts elsewhere

Case in point:

https://fortune.com/2025/09/25/amazon-got-off-easy-historic-2-5-billion-prime-deceptive-practices-settlement/

think of how many billions amazon saved by the FTC letting them wriggle out of this trial with the fine they did. spending $40 million to give a dumbass idiot sociopath nobody likes a movie to tell her how fantastic she is seems like a small price to pay against fines potentially in the 10s of billions if you don't pay a bribe......

(Hot take......... bribery is still a thing, and if there is ever going to be anything close to a recovery from this era of disaster from our country, it is not enough to prosecute the politicians that did this to us, we also have to go after the CEOs openly bribing the president, like Bezos and Cook, and put them in prison)..........

spooky3

(38,859 posts)
5. I think we all recognize the bribe but I think the humiliation value
Sat May 16, 2026, 11:20 AM
Saturday

Is overlooked. What does it say about the Pres and First Lady that so few people were willing to shell out a few dollars and less than two hours of their time to see this?

MustLoveBeagles

(17,213 posts)
6. I've watched about half of it
Sat May 16, 2026, 09:24 PM
Saturday

I may or may not work up the courage to watch the rest. It's not even so bad it's good. That would have entertainment value. It's the worst thing a movie can be. Boring

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