In just one weekend, Melania’s $7 million, three-day weekend haul has already out-grossed the entire domestic run of five 2025 movies nominated for this year’s Academy Awards. This includes — tee hee — two Best Picture nominees.
- The Secret Agent: $3.25 million — Four Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Actor, Casting, and Foreign Film.
- Sentimental Value: $4.57 million — Eight Oscar nominations for Picture, Director, Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Foreign Film, and Editing.
- If I Had Legs I’d Kick You: $1.09 million — Best Actress.
- Blue Moon: $2.11 million — Best Actor, Original Screenplay.
- It Was Just an Accident: $1.78 million — Original Screenplay, Foreign Film.
People will argue that some of those titles are foreign films. Melania is the story of an immigrant and plenty of foreign films have made more than $7 million.
People will argue that most of those titles had a limited release. Don’t make me laugh. Limited release is a marketing strategy in the hopes word-of-mouth would carry them into more theaters and bigger box office. The lack of a wide release is based on their failure in limited release.
But here are some important differences…
All five of those titles have enjoyed near-unanimous praise from the entertainment media, a ton of free publicity from the entertainment media, not to mention the prestige and promotion that comes with Oscar nominations. I’m not here to argue that they don’t deserve it. Maybe they do. I haven’t seen them, and like most Normal People, I probably never will.
All five of those titles are feature films. Melania is a documentary.
Not a single one of those five titles has weathered any negative publicity, much less billions of dollars in a coordinated corporate media campaign to dissuade people from going to see it. Melania managed to enjoy the best documentary opening in a decade despite a relentless, weeks-long hate campaign from every corner of the media.
Not only that, Melania opened huge despite everyone knowing the movie will soon be streaming over at Amazon Prime.
In a single weekend, Melania also out-grossed the entire domestic gross of Jennifer Lawrence’s most recent movie, this Stephen King movie, and the latest from a Coen brother.
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.
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