PAID IN FULL

Melania Trump Documentary Scores Massive Amazon Payday

Brett Ratner, who has denied sexual misconduct allegations made by several women, will helm the Melania film.

Amazon is forking over $40 million for the licensing rights to a documentary about incoming First Lady Melania Trump directed by alleged sexual harasser Brett Ratner, according to a report.

The as-yet-untitled film will receive a small theatrical release before it appears on the e-commerce giant’s streaming platform, Prime Video, Puck reported, citing three sources familiar with the deal. Amazon will also gain the rights to a follow-up docuseries on Trump that will run two or three episodes.

Ratner has posted on Instagram in recent weeks from Palm Beach, Florida, where Trump and her husband, President-elect Donald Trump, have been staying at Donald’s Mar-a-Lago estate before he relocates to Washington, D.C. later this month to assume the presidency.

Amazon said the project, which began shooting last month, will offer an “unprecedented, behind-the-scenes look at First Lady Melania Trump.”

Puck reported that potential buyers of the project were told Ratner came attached—how he came on board is unknown, as is how much he and Trump will make from the Amazon windfall.

Amazon founder and chairman Jeff Bezos has been among a stream of executives to visit the president-elect at Mar-a-Lago in recent weeks, as businesses and Wall Street have begun jockeying for an in with the incoming administration.

Amazon also reportedly plans to donate $1 million to Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, a move that mirrors donations by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta and a personal contribution from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

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The depth and scrutiny that the documentary, which Trump is coproducing, will train on its subject is to be revealed. However, Trump’s memoir Melania, which was published last year and which some Amazon customers reported was shipped to them covered in a mysterious “sticky goo,” revealed areas where she disagreed with her husband’s politics.

Chief among them was an emphatic defense of abortion rights that Donald’s Supreme Court appointees have rowed back since he left office after his first term.

Melania’s sole film appearance, according to the Internet Movie Database, is an uncredited turn in the Ben Stiller fashion industry comedy Zoolander.

As for her cinematic tastes, she praised Christopher Nolan’s 2012 superhero epic The Dark Knight Rises as a “great special effects movie” and Barry Sonnenfeld’s 2012 action comedy Men in Black 3 as a “great 3D experience.”

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Sean Craig

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