An Oregon movie theatre is accusing Amazon of pulling "Melania: Twenty Days to History" from its screens after the tech giant was unhappy with how the theatre marketed the first lady's documentary.
Lake Theater & Café in Lake Oswego, a Portland suburb, said in a post on Instagram on Sunday that Amazon "higher ups" were upset with how its marquee promoted "Melania" and that it needed to stop showing the film.
"Got a call that the higher ups (ie, at Amazon) were upset with how our marquee marketed their movie (ie, Melania), that, per them, Sunday would be its last day here," the theatre wrote.
On the marquee, the theatre wrote: "Amazon called. Our marquee made them mad. All ‘Melania’ shows canceled. Show your support at Whole Foods instead," an apparent reference to Amazon acquiring Whole Foods Market in 2017.
The theatre and Amazon did not immediately return NBC News requests for comment.
A local paper, the Lake Oswego Review, reported that the theatre's marquee had said: "DOES MELANIA WEAR PRADA? FIND OUT FRIDAY!" and "TO DEFEAT YOUR ENEMY. YOU MUST KNOW THEM. MELANIA."
Jordan Perry, the theatre's manager, said in a blog post on the theatre's website that he chose to show the film at the independent theatre because "I thought doing so would be funny."
"So, to fill a screen, why not get this inexplicable vanity piece from the current president’s wife?," he wrote. "I mean, it just seems so weird that it even exists (who wants a movie about Melania lol?), and wouldn’t it then be exponentially weirder, to the point of being funny, to show it here, at your obviously anti-establishment, occasionally troublemaking, neighborhood cinema?"
He added that including the film in the theater's roster was a financial decision.
Amazon MGM Studios dished out $40 million to acquire and $35 to promote the project. “Melania” debuted last week in over 1,500 theaters in North America and surpassed the initial opening weekend expectations, generating $7 million.
