Tickets sales for the upcoming Melania Trump documentary look set to be shockingly bad at UK cinemas.
On Friday, Amazon will release Melania, its $40m authorised documentary all about the first lady of the United States, in more than 100 UK cinemas.
The doc is all about Donald Trump’s wife in the twenty days before her husband’s second presidential inauguration.
However, with just a couple of days before the film’s release, it looks like there’ll be plenty of empty seats at British cinemas on opening day.
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At the time of writing, just three tickets have been sold for both the 12:05 and 15:10 screenings of the documentary at Vue’s flagship London venue in Islington.
At the nearby Finchley Road venue, just six tickets have been sold in total across the film’s three showings on Friday, whilst no tickets have been sold for the lunchtime screening on Saturday.
In locations such as Blackburn, Doncaster, Leeds and Nottingham there are several showings where not a single ticket has been sold.
Speaking to the Telegraph, Tim Richards, the chief executive of Vue, described ticket sales as “soft.”
He said he had received a considerable number of emails from the public criticising the decision to show the film.
“I have told everyone that, regardless of how we feel about the movie, if it is BBFC [British Board of Film Classification] approved we look at them and 99% of the time we will show it,” he said. “We do not play judge and jury to censor movies.”
Along with being an embarrassing look for Melania, it seems the documentary is going to be a box-office bomb for Amazon, who have spent huge amounts on the project.
Along with the $40m sum for the rights, Amazon’s MGM Studios has pumped $35m into the marketing of the film.
However, the millions spent on the film are clearly more of an attempt from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to curry favour with president Trump.
Odeon, Vue, Cineworld and Showcase are all set to show the film in the UK, whilst it will also be released in almost 30 countries worldwide.
Even in north America, things are looking bleak for Melania, as it is expected to gross just $5m in the US and Canada on its opening weekend.