How 'Melania' fared in its second weekend at the box office

How much did 'Melania' earn in its second weekend?

What explains the audience-critic divide for 'Melania'?

Is Brett Ratner's Hollywood return a comeback?

"Melania" is chugging along at the box office after an impressive opening weekend.

The controversial documentary about first lady Melania Trump grossed another $2.37 million in North American theaters in its second weekend of release, according to estimates shared Sunday, Feb. 8, by Amazon MGM Studios. This represents a decline of 67% from the movie's first weekend, bringing its domestic total to date to $13.35 million.

A 67% decline is considered a fairly large drop at the box office, generally indicating that devoted fans prioritized seeing the film early on and that there may not be a huge audience beyond that in theaters. But the second weekend of "Melania" also fell on Super Bowl weekend, which is traditionally a slow period for movie theaters.

The horror-thriller "Send Help," which debuted Jan. 30, repeated at No. 1 at the North American box office this weekend with another $10 million, according to Comscore estimates. "Melania" was in 10th place, below a pair of 2025 releases: Disney's animated smash "Zootopia 2" grossed $4 million, and the sci-fi epic "Avatar: Fire and Ash" collected an additional $3.5 million. Two new horror titles, "Dracula" and "The Strangers – Chapter 3," took in $4.5 million and $3.5 million, respectively.

"Melania," which follows the first lady in the 20 days leading up to President Donald Trump's2025 inauguration, is coming off a surprising theatrical debut of $7 million. "Melania" had been tracking to make $3 million to $5 million in its opening weekend.

Jeff Bock, senior media analyst for Exhibitor Relations, told USA TODAY ahead of the movie's release that any opening above $1 million would be a "huge number," suggesting "that a lot of folks who don't normally go to the movies went to this."

Amazon MGM Studios purchased "Melania" and a companion docuseries for $40 million and reportedly spent $35 million on marketing. The film is far from being profitable just yet, though Amazon will recoup some of its costs through ads and streaming service sign-ups.

In a statement, Kevin Wilson, Amazon MGM Studios’ head of domestic theatrical distribution, hailed the documentary's "strong theatrical performance" and said the release has built "momentum ahead of the film's eventual debut on Prime Video."

Directed by Brett Ratner, who was ousted from Hollywood in 2017 after six women accused him of sexual harassment, "Melania" was almost universally panned by critics. USA TODAY's Brian Truitt wrote that "while it does offer an extremely flattering view of all things Melania, outside of a few candid glimpses, you're not going to learn a lot about who she really is."

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, "Melania" received a dismal approval rating of just 8% from critics. Audiences, though, have embraced it. "Melania" earned a Rotten Tomatoes score of 99% from moviegoers who could verify that they purchased a ticket to see it, and audiences polled by the market research firm CinemaScore gave it a grade of A.