“Melania” producer Marc Beckman on Monday said that a new documentary series on first lady Melania Trump is coming this fall, despite the first outing earlier this year grossing $16.6 million worldwide — after costing Amazon MGM a staggering $75 million.
Beckman appeared on the conservative media network Real America’s Voice, telling host Eric Bolling that the series will provide “a completely different look at her world” than “Melania,” which sits at a rather poor aggregated film critic score of 10% on Rotten Tomatoes.
“You might remember, if you saw the film, we only captured 20 days of the first lady’s life,” said Beckman, one of her key advisers. “We open the window a little bit into her private life, her marriage, her family. We open a little deeper into her career, as well as her philanthropy.”
Beckman went on to claim rather confidently that this upcoming effort will be “a full new experience for the viewers” and give audiences a glimpse at “what happens right at the beginning of the new 47th presidential administration” of her husband, President Donald Trump.
In June, Mike Hopkins, head of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, confirmed the docuseries. “It did really well,” he told Variety’s “Strictly Business” podcast of the initial film. “We’ll have another bite at the apple when we release the companion docuseries later this year.”
JS has reached out to Amazon MGM and Beckman for further comment.
While most Americans are well aware of what happened after his reelection — a staggering accumulation of wealth, the launch of mass deportations and fatal shootings by federal immigration agents — the series will surely focus on less confrontational subject matter.
Beckman was mocked as “delusional” earlier this month for his lavish praise of the first lady.
The “Melania” documentary released in January was controversial from the outset, as it was directed by Brett Ratner, who was accused at the height of the Me Too movement in 2017 by at least six women of sexual harassment or misconduct, and was picked up by Amazon MGM.
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The film was also notably announced mere months after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos publicly congratulated Donald Trump for his “extraordinary political comeback” in winning the 2024 reelection — and reportedly cost Amazon MGM $40 million to license.
Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville suggested at the time that this “breathtaking” sum wasn’t a fair price, but rather a poorly veiled gift from Bezos to Donald Trump and his wife, and said, “What’s happening right in front of your fucking eyes … they’re paying her $40 million.”
Carville continued at the time, “I don’t know. Somebody better look into this.”
Bezos argued in May during an interview with CNBC that acquiring “Melania” was a “very wise business decision.” He also denied having had any involvement with the financial failure of a documentary and insisted that it wasn’t licensed to curry favor with Donald Trump.