Because of the jokes on the marquee, “Melania” was yanked from an Oregon cinema, the theater’s manager says.
The movie about Melania Trump began its run Friday, Jan. 30, at the Lake Theater in Lake Oswego, a Portland suburb. And then, according to the theater’s Instagram post: “Got a call that the higher ups (i.e., at Amazon) were upset with how our marquee marketed their movie (i.e., Melania), that, per them, Sunday would be its last day here.”
The marquee messages: “Does Melania wear Prada?” and “To defeat your enemy, you must know them. ‘Melania’ starts Friday.”
On Monday, the theater’s sign read: “Amazon called / Our marquee made them mad / All Melania shows canceled / Show your support at Whole Foods instead :(” — the last line referring to Amazon’s ownership of the supermarket chain.
According to a post by manager Jordan Perry on the theater’s website, he had gotten numerous calls about the movie from the public — some asking why he was showing it, others complaining that the marquee was disrespectful.
Addressing the “why” question, he said: “Mostly I thought doing so would be funny.”
The weekend was “a desert” in terms of booking options, he elaborated, so “why not get this inexplicable vanity piece from the current president’s wife?”
The 104-minute documentary, for which Amazon MGM Studios reportedly paid $40 million, follows Melania Trump in the 20 days before her husband’s second presidential nomination. It did better than expected on its opening weekend, bringing in $7 million to put it in third place at the U.S. box office, after “Send Help” and “Iron Lung.”
Noting that half the ticket price ($11 general, $8 senior) would go to the studio, Perry said the single-screen Lake Theater “contributed, in all, $196 to the Jeff Bezos Trust Fund.”
Characterizing the marquee messages as “playful” and his programming strategy as non-political, he added: “Despite outward appearances, Lake Theater & Cafe is into being inclusive, kinda/sorta as long as you are too, we want to meet everyone in the middle. You’re our friends, you know that, right?”
And, indeed, public figures on the other end of the political spectrum have received snark from the Lake. A photo on its website shows an earlier marquee message: “Not getting the Taylor Swift movie because her music’s not even good.”
The Mercury News
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