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Brace yourselves: There’s more Melania coming.
After the critical and commercial flop of the Melania documentary earlier this year, it has been announced that US First Lady Melania Trump will be the subject of a new Amazon Prime docuseries.
The announcement was made by her senior adviser Marc Beckman on Real America’s Voice.
“We are launching a docuseries, which is a total different experience, completely new, on Amazon Prime exclusively,” Beckman said. “That will be coming this fall. It’s confirmed, and I hope everybody tunes in, because it’s going to show a part of the first lady that hasn’t been seen yet.”
The series will follow Melania Trump at the start of her husband’s second term, supposedly offering insight into her private life and philanthropic work.
The controversial Amazon MGM Studios documentary Melania, which chronicled the 20 days leading up to Donald Trump’s second inauguration, was a significant financial loss for Amazon. According to The New York Times, Amazon paid Melania Trump’s production company $40 million for the rights to Melania and spent $35 million for the marketing of the movie.
A reported $28m went directly to the First Lady and a financial disclosure report released in June by the US Office of Government Ethics revealed Melania earned the Trumps $10.71m in proceeds from the film’s license agreement.
The film was also director Brett Ratner’s first film in years after multiple women, including actress Olivia Munn, accused him of sexual misconduct.
The film ended its theatrical run with $16.6 million worldwide versus an overall budget of $75 million.
The film was widely panned and received scrutiny from US lawmakers, as many publicly questioned whether the documentary failed to comply with federal anti-bribery laws.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos defended the investment as a “good business decision” and insisted that his company’s dealings with Trump were non-partisan.
In Euronews Culture’s review of Melania, we called the film a “self-congratulatory portrait of privilege”, adding that it was “a cynical attempt by Jeff Bezos to curry favour with Trump” and an “anti-documentary cash-grab orchestrated by people who only care about money and the furthering of empty mythologies designed to feed the Trump brand.”
Read the full review here.
No release date for the new Melania series has yet been announced, and the First Lady has not commented publicly.