Melania’s weekend box office haul of $7 million not only represents the best opening weekend for a documentary in a decade, but also humiliated two Barack Obama movies released theatrically.
Back in 2018, the hagiography The Final Year was released theatrically to great humiliation for all involved. Advertised as “a chronicle of the Barack Obama administration’s foreign policy team and the events of Obama’s final year in office,” it failed miserably, never landing in more than 39 theaters.
Remember, this was a limited release, hoping word of mouth would validate a wider release until it grew into a hit.
Well, after two weeks in release, The Final Year grossed a pathetic $262,286.
Here’s my favorite part…
The apples-to-apples part…
Even though it was almost certainly released into Democrat-heavy cities like Los Angeles and New York, The Final Year only grossed — not a typo — $121 per theater during its opening weekend in only eight theaters—yeah, eight empty theaters.
By comparison…
Across 1,778 theaters, Melania grossed $1,035 per theater.
Critics drooled over The Final Year, with an 83 percent fresh rating from 105 reviews (Normal People score: 49 percent rotten). Let me tell you, 105 reviews, most of them positive…? That’s a lot of free publicity. Still, $121 per screen.
Ha ha.
It gets better…
Remember that dumbass movie Southside with You? This is a feature film about Barry and Michelle’s first date, released domestically in the summer of 2016 and into six foreign countries. The worldwide box office gross was just, lol, $6.6 million.
Here in the U.S., Southside with You went as wide as 897 theaters, but still failed to top Melania’s opening weekend gross despite…
- Enjoying a 70-day release.
- Winning a 92 percent fresh rating based on a whopping 159 reviews.
- Garnering a ton of free media publicity.
- Opening with a slot at the Sundance Film Festival
- Being a narrative movie and not a documentary
- Not facing an imminent streaming move like Melania
- Not facing billions of dollars in a negative, coordinated hate campaign from the corporate media.
Allow me to put it this way…
In 2024, Donald Trump earned nearly eight million more raw votes than Barack Obama ever got, and in 2026, Melania Trump crushed Barry Obama at the box office.
Who’s Lebron now?
John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.
