Los Angeles (tca/dpa) - Six years after its release, Michelle Obama’s Netflix documentary has experienced a revival amid Melania Trump’s movie hitting theaters. According to data tracking company Luminate, viewership in the US for “Becoming” surged over 13,000% last weekend compared to the previous one. While roughly 354,000 minutes of theEmmy-nominated chronicle were viewed the weekend of January 23-25 , more than 47.5 million minutes of “Becoming” were viewed over Melania’s opening weekend. “The resurgence of interest in ‘Becoming,’ is a prime example of audiences discovering, or re-discovering, catalog content due to larger conversations in the zeitgeist,”Luminate Communications Lead Jimmy Harney said in a statement. In response to the widely promoted Trump movie’s premiere weekend, social media users encouraged followers to help make the Obama documentary the No. 1 film on Netflix. “We need a moral victory this weekend,” TikTok user Nathan C Jun said, explaining how the move “would be so embarrassing for ‘Melania’ to simultaneously tank.” Despite being largely panned by critics, “Melania” had thebiggest opening for a nonfiction feature in the last decade . It exceeded U.S. expectations by bringing in around$7 million on its opening weekend, compared to the$1-5 million that industry outlets projected . Still, it was only a drop in the bucket toward what it cost to make and market the Brett Ratner -helmed production. Amazon MGM Studios reportedlypaid $40 million for “Melania,” and spent an additional $35 million on promotional efforts. The documentary is expected to stream on Prime Video at a later date. The following information is not intended for publication tca dpa coh (The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)
