CNN's Harry Enten predicted a brutal critical reception for Melania Trump's documentary when it's released this week.
"Melania" premiers Friday and so far advance ticket sales have been in single digits for many theaters for the film that Amazon MGM studios paid $40 million to produce and spent $35 million marketing, but the chief data analyst told "CNN News Central" that early indicators projected a flop.
"This giantinvestment, and this is gettinga very wide release – not so hotto trot, right," Enten said. "Documentaryticket sales, the first weekend,the top all time, 'Fahrenheit 9/11,'adjusted for inflation. We'retalking about $41 million.Melania's forecast is notanywhere close to that –$1million to upwards of $5million. You don't have to be amathematical genius to know thatthis number, $41 million, issignificantly higher than the $1million to $5 million forecast despite this movie getting a lot of press and this documentarygetting a lot of press."
Enten then examined some of the pre-release indicators for the response by critics.
"Ifwe look at the reviews, notparticularly good," he said. "So what'sthe chance that Melania's Rotten Tomatoes score is below 20 percent? Ofcourse, you don't want to bebelow 50 percent, you actually want tobe above 60 percent for a 'fresh' score.The chance that it's below 20 percent, ergo, the critics are not goingto like it is 73 percent. Thechance that it's above 50 percent isway lower than that. So thebottom line is this at thispoint, the belief is part of thereason why the film is not goingto do all that well is becausethere's a belief that the filmis not all that good."
The $75 million that Amazon MGM spent on the film rights and advertising appear to make the documentary one of the five most expensive ever produced, Enten said, while the first lady herself was ranked in the bottom three of all time by historians.
"Historical critics don't reallylike Melania Trump either," Enten said. "Imean, just take a look:Historians, first lady rankings,the bottom three – dead last,Melania Trump. When you're nextto Jane Pierce and Margaret Taylor, those are notparticularly good."
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