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 U.S. for “Becoming” surged over 13,000% last weekend compared to the previous one.
While roughly 354,000 minutes of the Emmy-nominated chronicle were viewed the weekend of Jan. 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.
@nathancjun WE CAN DO THIS!! STREAM BECOMING 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 the biggest 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 reportedly paid $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.
