Amazon said Sunday that its Prime Video streaming service would release a behind-the-scenes documentary about the life of Melania Trump.
The film will hit theaters and stream on Amazon Prime in the second half of this year, the company said in a statement. Mrs. Trump will be executive producer of the documentary, which began filming in December, the month after her husband, Donald J. Trump, won the presidential election.
Amazon said it was “excited to share this truly unique story.”
The company and its founder, Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post, had a rocky relationship with Mr. Trump during Mr. Trump's first presidential term. But in recent months, Amazon and Mr. Bezos have taken steps to fix it. The tech giant said last month it would donate $1 million to the president-elect's inaugural fund, joining Meta and executives from several other Silicon Valley companies in writing checks to the inaugural committee. Mr. Bezos has said he is “very optimistic” about Mr. Trump’s new term and is eager to work with his administration on cutting regulations.
During his first presidential term, Mr. Trump criticized Mr. Bezos for his newspaper's political reporting and questioned whether the U.S. Postal Service was undercharging Amazon for shipping. Amazon, in turn, accused Mr. Trump of putting “undue pressure” on the Pentagon to deny the company a cloud computing contract.
Amazon now seems eager to turn the page.
In October, The Post said it would stop endorsing presidential candidates, a decision made by Mr. Bezos, and did not publish an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris that had already been lined up. Mr. Bezos defended his decision, saying the newspaper notes “create a perception of bias.”
Last week, Ann Telnaes, a Post cartoonist, said she was resigning after the paper's opinion section rejected a cartoon showing Mr. Bezos and three other technology executives bending the knee in front of a statue of Mr. Trump while celebrating the president-elect bags with money. David Shipley, The Post's opinion editor, said the cartoon was rejected because the section had published a column on the same subject and already had another scheduled for publication. He said he had asked Ms Telnaes to withdraw her resignation, saying: “The only bias was against repetition.”
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the company's and Mr. Bezos' efforts to forge closer ties with Mr. Trump. Trump's transition team also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mrs. Trump has recently shown more willingness to share details about her life with the public. Last year, she published a memoir detailing her modeling career, her marriage to Trump and her time in the White House. It became a #1 New York Times bestseller. Her role as executive producer of the documentary suggests that she will have some influence on the way her life is depicted.
Brett Ratner, director and producer behind films like “Rush Hour” and “The Revenant,” will direct the documentary. Mr Ratner has lowered his profile in recent years after questions arose about his conduct. In 2011, he resigned as co-producer of the Oscars broadcast after making an anti-gay statement at a public event. In 2017, Mr. Ratner was accused of sexual misconduct by six women in an article published by The Los Angeles Times, which he denied.
Amazon, which will have exclusive rights to the film about Mrs. Trump, said it would reveal more details about the project as filming progressed and release plans were finalized.
