Melania makes just £33,000 at UK box office after near-empty screenings: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/melania-trump-movie-documentary-film-b2913744.html
Melania Trump movie fails to crack top 25 as documentary film flops in UK

Documentary, which cost Amazon a reported £54.6m, almost didn’t crack top 30 after sparsely attended showings

The Independent
@cstross That’s rather more than I expected, to be honest
@cschack @cstross apparently in the US they've been paying people 50$ plus the ticket if they attend and stay put for the whole movie. Wouldn't be surprised if they pulled similar stuff in the UK.
@oblomov @cschack @cstross I had the impression that that was a joke. The NY Times did report better-than-normal box office for a documentary (and here I use the word they used…). But their Sunday book review section uses a special footnote to denote reports of bulk purchases—I wonder if that needs to be done for movies like this, too.
@SteveBellovin @oblomov @cschack It's a viable money-laundering tactic. Cf. political campaigns buying huge quantities of hardcover books ghost-written for their candidates and shoveling them into landfill. Gets bestseller list publicity, and a non-attributable donation.