Amazon Lost Nearly $60 Million on the Melania Documentary, and Somehow a New Series Is Already Coming

Amazon has never been shy about spending big to secure high-profile projects, but few gambles have turned out quite as costly as its recent foray into political documentary filmmaking. Months after that project’s underwhelming theatrical run, the streaming giant is already circling back for another chapter of the same story.

That first outing, simply titled ‘Melania‘, followed First Lady Melania Trump across the 20 days leading up to President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, directed by Brett Ratner. Amazon paid a reported $40 million to acquire the project, the highest price ever paid for a documentary, before layering on an additional $35 million marketing campaign that pushed the film’s total cost to roughly $75 million.

Amazon is launching a new docuseries centered on Melania Trump this fall, according to her senior adviser Marc Beckman, arriving just months after the original documentary lost an estimated $58.4 million following its disappointing theatrical run. Speaking on the conservative media network Real America’s Voice, Beckman told host Eric Bolling, “This fall, we are following the film with a docuseries, surrounding the first lady. It’s a completely different look at her world. It gives the viewers a little bit of a peek into what happens right at the beginning of the new 47th presidential administration.”

The original ‘Melania’ documentary grossed just $16.6 million worldwide against its massive budget, a shortfall that made the project one of the more expensive box office disappointments in recent memory. Beyond its financial performance, the film also drew sharp criticism from reviewers, currently sitting at a mere 10% on Rotten Tomatoes, and faced scrutiny from lawmakers who publicly questioned whether the deal between Amazon and the Trump administration ran afoul of federal anti-bribery laws.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos defended the investment publicly, describing it as simply “a good business decision” and insisting the company’s dealings with the Trump family were non-partisan in nature. Amazon MGM’s distribution chief Kevin Wilson offered a more optimistic read on the film’s underlying value proposition, arguing that its theatrical release still served a purpose beyond box office returns.

He explained, “Together, theatrical and streaming represent two distinct value-creating moments that amplify the film’s overall impact,” adding that early audience data was already showing “strong intent to rewatch on Prime Video and meaningful interest in the forthcoming docuseries.”

According to Beckman’s comments, the upcoming docuseries will focus specifically on the early days of Trump’s second term, offering what he described as an entirely different vantage point into Melania Trump’s private life and philanthropic work compared to the original film. No release date beyond a general fall 2026 window has been announced, and Melania Trump herself has not publicly commented on the new project.

The timing of this announcement is notable given Melania Trump’s broader expansion into the entertainment industry, having recently launched her own production company, Muse Films, whose name appears to reference her Secret Service code name. That venture, combined with this new Amazon series, suggests the Trump family’s media ambitions extend well beyond a single documentary, regardless of how that first effort performed financially or critically.

With Amazon apparently undeterred by the steep losses from its first attempt at chronicling Melania Trump’s life on screen, the streamer seems ready to double down on the partnership rather than walk away from it entirely.

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