First Lady Melania Trump‘s controversial new documentary Melania found some unexpected competition in former First Lady Michelle Obama’s 2020 documentary, Becoming.
Entertainment Weekly reports Obama’s documentary saw a massive bump in viewership on Netflix just ahead of Melania‘s theatrical premiere, according to data from Luminate. Becoming saw a 13,000% increase in viewership through Feb. 1, with more than 46.5 million minutes viewed, compared to 345,000 minutes the previous weekend.
This coincided directly with the premiere of Melania, which landed in theaters Jan. 30.
The 2020 documentary follows the former first lady on her 2019 book tour for her memoir Becoming, where she opened up about her life and path to the White House and beyond.
While many were at home reportedly streaming Becoming on Netflix, Melania performed surprisingly well in the box office.
According to Amazon MGM Studios, which produced the movie, Melania earned $7 million in its opening weekend.
While this is a feat for a documentary, it hardly measures up to the $40 million Amazon spent on the rights for the film, in addition to a whopping $35 million that was reportedly spent on marketing alone.
The documentary, which follows the first lady in the final 20 days before President Trump’s second inauguration, was review bombed just ahead of its theatrical release.
Reviewers took to Letterboxd (which does not verify whether users have actually seen the movie in question or not) to slam the new film from disgraced filmmaker Brett Ratner, who hadn’t directed a film since he was accused of sexual harassment by multiple women in 2017 and recently spotted in the Epstein files. The doc’s Letterboxd score is still sitting at 1.2 stars.
Some reviewers described it as “fascist propaganda,” while one reviewer wrote, “If they showed this on a plane, people would still walk out.”
But even upon its release, the documentary was critically panned. Decider’s Jesse Hassenger described the movie in his review as “placid and uneventful.”
“There’s no conflict, no drama, no anything. Fascism does like its pre-ordained victories and fancy outfits,” he writes.