Hey, happy Sunday. We're sending out a special edition covering two big media industry stories, plus big news about Bob Iger, ESPN, the NFL, and more... |
The 'Melania' report card |
The weekend box office estimates are in. Fans of President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump have made "Melania" a breakout hit by typical documentary standards.
Except, of course, "Melania" is anything but a typical documentary. The Hollywood Reporter called it the "most expensive" such film in history.
Amazon MGM Studios paid $40 million for the rights to "Melania" (and most of that $$ reportedly went straight to the first lady) and another $35 million for marketing. The Trumps pulled out all the stops to promote it, as well.
So, with all that in mind, here are the box office results. "Melania" is on track to earn about $7 million this weekend, well ahead of pre-release expectations, with ticket sales reflecting America's familiar red/blue divide. Let's dig into what the #'s mean:
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Amazon touts 'strong start' |
To the liberals who are saying it "bombed" in theaters: "Melania" is projected to be the best-performing documentary of its kind in a decade. ("Of its kind" excludes projects like Taylor Swift's concert film.)
To the MAGA loyalists who are celebrating the ticket sales: By financial standards, the film is not a winner, at least not yet.
After all, "Melania" is still far, far short of turning a profit, i.e. the typical Hollywood metric for success.
Given that the film won't be in theaters for long, there is no way that Amazon will recoup its costs just from the theatrical release. And this strengthens the argument Amazon's industry rivals have made for the past year: That the studio bought "Melania" to curry favor with the Trump administration.
Then again, box office figures are not the only way to measure success, since "Melania" and three companion TV episodes are going to stream on Prime Video, and the studio can eventually recoup more of its spend via advertising and Prime signups.
Kevin Wilson, the head of domestic theatrical distribution for the studio, pointed that out in a statement this morning:
"We're very encouraged by the strong start and positive audience response, with early box office for 'Melania' exceeding our expectations. This momentum is an important first step in what we see as a long-tail lifecycle for both the film and the forthcoming docu-series, extending well beyond the theatrical window and into what we believe will be a significant run for both on our service."
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Film critics liken it to propaganda |
CNN reporters in DC, Florida, Idaho, LA and London talked with theatergoers for this excellent story about the viewer response. I loved these anecdotes.
Not surprisingly, professional reviewers hated "Melania." They called it a vapid infomercial with no real reason to exist. Right now the film only has an 11% "fresh" score on Rotten Tomatoes. A few notable quotes:
>> "Melania" is not really a documentary at all, but rather a hagiographic "reality TV" special that "preaches to the faithful," The Bulwark culture editor Sonny Bunch wrote. Bunch said it was "fascinating to see so pure and naked an instrument of graft and propaganda deployed to great effect on an audience happy to lap it up."
>> "The significance of 'Melania' isn't the contents of the film so much as the fact that it happened," British film columnist Robert Hutton wrote, calling the film "an important document in the decline of American public life."
>> Monica Hesse wrote about the film for the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post, and she brilliantly acknowledged the awkward circumstances right in the first paragraph. Bravo.
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FLOTUS remains inscrutable |
CNN's Betsy Klein said it best in a must-read article about what she learned from seeing the film.
"I have covered Melania Trump for the better part of the last decade," Klein wrote. "I've traveled to her native Slovenia and met childhood classmates, flown on her plane and climbed the Great Wall of China with her. I went to Texas with her on the day she wore that jacket. I have asked her questions and watched nearly every interview she's ever given."
"But I still have no idea what she's really like or what it’s like to be a member of the Trump family. This movie — and the press tour around it — underscores that we’ll never actually know."
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A reality check via Deadline's Anthony D'Alessandro: When a movie opens on nearly 1,800 screens, "it has the potential to do $30 million." So yes, it's true that "Melania" "crushed it" in "in red zone counties," but it's also true that there were lots of mostly-empty showings. Trump can shout "BLOCKBUSTER!" (like he did in a Truth Social post this morning) while his opponents can mock the movie.
Overall, the $7 million total puts "Melania" on track at No. 3 overall for the weekend, behind the Sam Raimi-directed horror adventure "Send Help" and YouTube star Markiplier's self-financed film “Iron Lung."
My bottom line: The suspicion about Amazon's "Melania" motives will linger long after the film leaves theaters. Here's my full story for CNN...
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'The point is to intimidate' |
Legally speaking, the federal charges against journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort are complex and unusual, sparking debate about the legitimacy of the cases involving the January 18 church disruption.
But politically speaking, it's pretty simple. The Trump administration wants to punish perceived opponents and raise the cost of critical news coverage – "to make journalists think twice," as Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, put it yesterday.
"The charges are absolutely frivolous," but a courtroom victory is beside the point, Stern told CNN's Victor Blackwell. "The Trump administration, I'm sure, knows the baselessness of the charges, just like the lawsuits that Donald Trump files frivolously" against news outlets. "The point is not to win... The point is to intimidate and chill lawful newsgathering."
Both reporters were released after initial court appearances on Friday. Fort went on "Anderson Cooper 360" and said "two dozen agents" showed up at her home to serve the arrest warrant. A law enforcement source told CNN that more than two dozen agents were involved in Lemon's arrest as well. So the twin arrests were a show of force by the federal government and an expression of power.
Lemon went on his daily YouTube show, albeit a few hours later than usual, and thanked his viewers for their support. "They're trying to silence journalists," he said. "And I will not be silenced."
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Here's what Lemon is doing next |
Last night at the annual pre-Grammys gala hosted by Clive Davis, Lemon received a shoutout from Davis and a partial standing ovation from the crowd.
Lemon is no longer planning to cover the Grammys red carpet tonight, but he will be attending the awards ceremony, I'm told. And he is booked on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" tomorrow night.
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Trump ridicules Lemon (again) |
Last night Trump was asked on Air Force One about the case, and he said "I didn't know anything about it." Trump proceeded to call Lemon a "sleazebag" who "got no viewers, he was a failure, he was a failed host." (As I pointed out on CNN TV earlier today, Lemon is not a failure, and he's done rather well for himself on YouTube and other new media platforms in the past three years.)
>> The president, always a student of attention, also said "probably from his standpoint," the arrest is "the best thing that could happen to him." Piers Morgan said the same thing more colorfully on X: Lemon is "already milking it like a dairy farmer."
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Poking holes in the indictment |
When the indictment was unsealed on Friday afternoon, journalists immediately poked holes in the DOJ's dramatic description of the church disruption.
For instance, the indictment asserts that Lemon and Fort tried to "oppress and intimidate" the church pastor, while Lemon's live stream showed him calmly interviewing the pastor.
But you know how this goes. In the car last night I flipped over to Fox News and heard a panel of guests taking the indictment very seriously and insisting that Lemon was a participant in the protest, not a witness. Lisa Boothe said Lemon "was there as an activist, but the media wouldn't understand that because they've all become activists."
Then I flipped over to MS NOW, and I heard Antonia Hylton say that the indictment was so flimsy that it made her laugh out loud. Hylton also said "it's probably no coincidence here that these two journalists, arrested in this way, are Black."
"This felt positively Soviet," said her guest Jelani Cobb, "where anything that offends the state can be retrofit into some sort of, 'Oh, is this illegal? Well, now it is.'
Cobb, the Columbia Journalism School dean, also pointed out why it's significant that Lemon and Fort are both independent journos: "These are not people who have the institutional backing of large corporations, and so they are a more vulnerable target."
All that said, numerous legal experts are predicting that Lemon and Fort will prevail. If the cases ever get to trial, prosecutors will have a very difficult time proving intent. My weekend story for CNN.com gets into some of the reasons why.
>> Related reading: "What does a law protecting abortion clinics have to do with Don Lemon?" Reuters reporter Daniel Wiessner tries to explain...
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WSJ: Bob Iger ready to step down |
The WSJ's Friday night scoop: "Bob Iger has told associates that he plans to step down as CEO and pull back from daily management before the Dec. 31 end of his contract, according to people familiar with the matter."
The timing of this report is striking: Disney is releasing quarterly earnings tomorrow morning and the board, according to the WSJ and the NYT, is planning to meet in the coming days and vote on a new CEO. Parks chief Josh D'Amaro is thought to be the frontrunner. (Scott Gustin recently penned a piece about why D'Amaro's ascension "feels inevitable.")
So the Journal story could be read as Iger's avowal that he is really, truly ready to leave the stage this time. The NYT's Brooks Barnes raised the issue in this Saturday story, saying D'Amaro's "biggest challenge might be escaping Bob Iger's shadow," given the tumultuous Bob Chapek chapter.
Iger and Chapek "were opposites in both personality and approach," Barnes notes, while Iger and D'Amaro "are eerily similar." He says D'Amaro even dresses like Iger, "whether by emulation or coincidence," so much "that some people inside Disney roll their eyes behind his back." Eye rolling? How un-Disney-like!
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Let's hear more about this: |
Robbie Whelan, Jessica Toonkel and Ben Fritz's Journal story contains this paragraph that cries out for more detail: "Iger has told people close to him that he is ready to move on from the grind of being CEO and was frustrated by conflicts at Disney's ABC network over the brief suspension of late night host Jimmy Kimmel."
Those conflicts presumably involved Disney TV boss Dana Walden, thought to be the other chief contender for the CEO job...
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ESPN's NFL equity deal is done |
Just in time for the Super Bowl, "government regulators have approved ESPN's billion-dollar blockbuster acquisition of multiple NFL Media assets, and the two sides closed the agreement late Saturday," The Athletic's Andrew Marchand reports. ESPN covered the news here...
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>> Trump penned an exclamation-filled op-ed for the WSJ directly addressing the "tariff skeptics at the Journal." (WSJ)
>> Some 👀 on "60 Minutes:" CBS News has not sent out PR listings for the newsmag yet, but it is promoting a Bill Whitaker segment about NASA's forthcoming Artemis II mission. (X)
>> New this morning: Laurel Rosenhall has an early look at Gavin Newsom's book "Young Man in a Hurry," which comes out Feb. 24... (NYT)
>> OnlyFans "is in talks to sell a majority stake to an investment firm in a deal that values it at around $3.5 billion." (WSJ)
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>> Blake Montgomery argues "TikTok's first week of American ownership was a disaster." (The Guardian)
>> Gretel Kahn covers "how Cuban journalists report on the island from exile." (Reuters Institute)
>> Todd Spangler wonders: "What Is David Ellison's Warner Bros. Endgame?" (Variety)
>> Michelle Goldberg assesses "the fathomless resentment of Tucker Carlson." (NYT)
>> David Folkenflik asks: "Kari Lake promotes Trump on Voice of America. Does that break the law?" (NPR)
>> Kayla Cobb and Tess Patton go inside "the dark underbelly of the microdrama phenomenon." (TheWrap)
>> Dan Barry and Sonia A. Rao chronicle the resurgence of the 'R-word' slur among right-wing media — and the disability activists who are dismayed by it. (NYT)
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Tonight at the Grammy Awards... |
"All eyes will be on Bad Bunny," the NYT's Ben Sisario says. "His latest release, 'Debí Tirar Más Fotos,' is up for all of the top prizes, and if it takes album of the year it would be first to do so with vocals entirely in Spanish." Read on...
>> More via CNN's Stephanie Elam and Lisa France: "Grammys will provide a dose of “medicine” to a country in crisis, Recording Academy president says."
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