Jimmy Kimmel called BS on the idea that first lady Melania Trump’s documentary film was a success by any metric.
Melania released on Friday and made $7 million on its opening weekend, a number that seems impressive by documentary standards. However, multiple reports of fake ticket sales have cast doubt on how much of that box office number is legitimate.
“Speaking of rigged outcomes, the Melania documentary,” Kimmel began.
Quoting from a Daily Beast article on the movie’s alleged bulk buying, Kimmel told viewers, “Sources say there were signs that blocks of tickets to Melania were purchased and then distributed to Republican activists and senior citizens’ homes.“
Kimmel jokingly added, “Which are really the same thing.”
“Imagine those poor senior citizens,” Kimmel said. “‘Good morning, Mrs. Greenwald. Here are your heart pills and here are your liver pills. And here’s a pair of tickets to Melania.’”
“It’s all very sus, as the kids like to say,” Kimmel continued. He pointed out how the movie’s two Rotten Tomatoes scores—one from critics and one from general audiences—are suspiciously far apart.
“As of tonight, Melania has a score of 5 percent on Rotten Tomatoes from the critics. That is very low,” Kimmel said.
“To put that in perspective, that is 1 percent lower than Gigli,” Kimmel said, referencing a 2003 Ben Affleck film that flopped with both audiences and critics.
Meanwhile, Kimmel noted, “The audience score for Melania is 99 percent positive, which is 1 percent higher than The Godfather. And I’m sure Donald J. Corleone had nothing to do with that at all."
The positive audience reviews appear to be made up of devout Trump supporters. Part of this could be explained by how critics of all political stripes had to watch the film for their job, whereas non-MAGA moviegoers never bothered to see Melania at all.
“We need to get to the bottom of this,” Kimmel said, mockingly referencing MAGAworld’s “Stop the steal!” rhetoric in the 2020 presidential election and Trump’s continued insistence that the election was stolen from him.
“Send in Tulsi Gabbard and the FBI!” Kimmel joked. “Seize the ticket machines, the popcorn buckets, the box office receipts, at every multiplex in America!”
