An independent movie theater in Lake Oswego says Amazon has pulled its screenings of Melania after taking issue with how the film was promoted on the theater’s marquee.
According to the Lake Oswego Review, the Lake Theater & Café revealed on social media this week that representatives from Amazon objected to the theater’s marketing of the documentary centered on First Lady Melania Trump and subsequently canceled future showings.
The Lake Theater & Café is locally known for its playful and witty marquee messages, and naturally, why would anyone pass up an opportunity like Melania? The theater’s promotional lines included, “Does Melania wear Prada? Find out Friday,” as well as a quote attributed to Sun Tzu’s The Art of War: “To defeat your enemy, you must know them. Melania starts Friday.”
In an Instagram post, the theater wrote that it had received a call from “higher-ups” at Amazon who were unhappy with the marquee messaging and informed the venue that Sunday would be the film’s final day on its screen. The post jokingly added that the staff hoped Amazon would not retaliate by canceling their Prime subscription.
Theatre owner and general manager Jordan Perry expanded on the decision in a post on the theater’s website, explaining that the choice to book Melania was driven as much by irony as economics. Perry described the Lake Theater as an “anti-establishment, occasionally troublemaking” venue and said the very existence of the film struck him as strange, and hence, also amusing.
“I mean, it just seems so weird that it even exists (who wants a movie about Melania lol?),” Perry wrote. “And wouldn’t it be exponentially weirder, to the point of being funny, to show it here?”
Perry added that the theater had received emails from patrons questioning why the film was being screened at all, even before Amazon pulled distribution rights. Financial considerations also played a role, he noted, citing a slow period for new releases and the need to fill screens.
The Brett Ratner-directed “documentary/movie” has been widely panned by critics and has so far grossed approximately $9.5 million against a reported $40 million production budget. The film is also believed to have spent over $35 million more on marketing, so don’t let anyone tell you that this is a box office success.