In a perfect world, the release of the reportedly $40m documentary about Melania Trump would have gone ahead in South Africa as planned this past weekend, and disappeared from sight once it was revealed nobody was interested in wasting their cash and time by going to cinemas to watch it.
The controversy around the project had been swirling furiously since last year. Its director Brett Ratner, though once a Hollywood power player, has since fallen from favour and is out of regular work thanks to allegations of sexual misconduct. Not to mention the unsurprising inclusion of worrying photos of him and young women with notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, released as part of the most recent US government document dump last weekend.
Then there was the insane news that Jeff Bezos’s Amazon Studios had paid $40m for the film, with a further $35m for marketing and publicity, making a record $75m total for the acquisition of a documentary. There was also an agreement the film would not only enjoy a global cinematic release but would receive a further incarnation as an extended three-part docuseries to be made exclusively available on Amazon’s Prime Video.
These should have been red flags to any distributor able to make an independent decision that this was a case that not discreetly demonstrated the adage about gift-wrapping up sh*t to convince us that it wasn’t sh*t.
Even if you can understand that in a relatively small territory like South Africa, with its long-decreasing cinema attendance, the threats posed by the rapid rise of streaming services and the negative effects of the Covid-19 lockdowns have meant that distributors are making increasingly safe bets on fare they believe will guarantee returns. Think Jason Statham skop skiet en donners, The Fast and the Furious film number 999, superhero sequels, reboots and multiverse shifting crossovers, and anything involving Tyler Perry in a dress. The recent headline-grabbing decision to pull Melania just days before its scheduled release has, like the film, been dressed up to appear worthy and principled rather than a decision based on economically motivated panic.
Melania has been on the Theatrical Release Schedule (the weekly document provided to critics and entertainment writers with forthcoming release details) since December last year. Given that, by all pre-release accounts the film was obviously an expensive vanity project designed to appease the fragile ego of the maniac in charge of America, and it was guaranteed a post-release eternal home on a streaming service available in South Africa, you would have thought there was little reason to take up rare space on local big screens with such laughable nonsense.
Instead, either because they believed there would be enough genuine hate-watch interest or because the consequences of refusing Bezos and, by extension, US President Donald Trump, distributor FilmFinity duly placed the film on its schedule for release on January 30, in line with the film’s globally scheduled release date.
As has been the case for many years with big-bet profit-generating films that don’t want box office success to be ruined by negative reviews, Melania was not scheduled for a preview screening to local critics, writers or influencers. Audiences and the market were, in true late capitalist fashion, going to decide for themselves.
Last week, as the first lady began her media blitz of talk show appearances and interviews to promote the film, social media users laughed their asses off at her responses. From the trailer and photos of the tacky décor to the swag bags handed out at early screenings to MAGA loyalists, podcast and tech bros, the headlines began to crow about how few tickets had been pre-sold at cinemas across the US. FilmFinity became the subject of scrutiny from the New York Times and other international publications when it decided to pull the film from release in SA.
Statements from the distributor made mention of how, “given the current climate”, it had decided not to release the film, without any expansion on what such a climate may have entailed: was it the poor pre-release interest in the US, the too loud mockery of the film by millions of people on social media who had not yet seen it and were definitely not going to, or the rightful outrage of many over the Trump administration’s violent and fatal handling of immigration?
Who knows, but whatever the reason for the decision, it turned out to be too little too late for the distributors, who should never have programmed the film in the first place. By so belatedly announcing its decision, without any satisfactory explanation, FilmFinity has made itself an easy target for everyone from libertarians to alt-right nutters, neo-conservatives and Trump supporters, as an enemy of freedom of speech and heir to the bad old days of “apartheid-era censorship”.
All of which could have been easily avoided if they had simply quietly removed the film from the list of forthcoming release titles a few weeks earlier without being required to give any reason for their decision. Instead, critics who would have reluctantly attended the preview and may have chosen to ignore its release completely are “going to see how terrible it is so you don’t have to”, and all Steve Hofmeyer’s friends who cancelled their DStv subscriptions years ago in protest against Disney’s wokeness are scrambling to sign up for Prime Video to see an extended version of the film “they” didn’t want you to see.
The lesson, if there is one, is that it shouldn’t be hard to see when you’re being sold excrement wrapped in a glitzy package. Better to avoid it, rather than half-open the package, reel at the stench and then be left with its contents sprayed all over your face.
