Melania Trump goes Hollywood: Inside first lady's documentary project

Melania, a groundbreaking documentary about First Lady Melania Trump's life, and a special focus on the 20 days leading up to President Trump's second inauguration, January 20th. The Amazon MGM Studios documentary hits theaters worldwide this Friday, January 30th. And the First Lady hosted a private screening at the White House for 70 special guests. The first time friends and family saw the film, Saturday night. The President and First Lady will attend a premiere at the Trump Kennedy Center Thursday night for another screening. Melania's senior advisor, Mark Beckman, who produced the film, says this is not a political film at all, as the First Lady led creative direction for the film. Joining me now, the man himself, exclusive interview here with the senior advisor and agent to First Lady Melania Trump, Mark Beckman is with us. Mark, great to see you. Thank you so much for being here. And congratulations on the film. It looks great. Tell us about your role in it. You produced it, and the First Lady's direction in terms of the creative, what did she want in the film? What was she looking for? Sure. It's a big week for us. This film launches on Friday, so I hope all of Melania Trump's fans get their tickets. If everybody's watching, tickets are on sale now. And our hope is to really, really get behind our First Lady. Melania had an idea to create a film for a very long time. As you know, she's a very visual person. And people asked her for years and years to tell more about her story. They wanted to learn from this very, very private, enigmatic person more about her family, her business, and her philanthropy. And we realized that this was the perfect moment, 20 days of her life leading up to the inauguration in Washington, D.C., to share a little bit more insight into those very private parts of her life. But what's really special and unprecedented in this moment is the fact that she was going from private citizenship into becoming First Lady again. And it's a lot. It's not just about taking the role of First Lady, but remember, as a mother, as a wife, as a daughter, she has to move her family back into Washington, D.C. She's juggling all of her private businesses that you know she's so active in, bestselling book author, all of the digital assets, even her Christmas ornaments. All of that is in still full activity while she's building her entire East Wing team around her. And then, of course, all of the other things that happened within that 20-day period. So that's the background. That's the impetus behind the creative direction, why Melania wanted to develop this movie, Maria. Well, it looks great. And Mark, this is big business as well. Melania and yourself also oversaw the $40 million deal with Amazon MGM. It includes a follow-up docuseries for later this year, which will focus on the first lady's priorities during her time in the White House. Tell me about the 20 days leading up to it. Is the film similar to the book? I read the book, and the book, Melania, is so inspiring, because it tells the story of her journey from Eastern Europe to America, to New York, to meeting Donald Trump. Is there similarities to the book as well, which was, of course, bestseller? No, none of the book is included in this movie. So if you read the book and you loved it, this is the time. This movie only focuses on these 20 days of Melania Trump's life. And what we do is we take her fans and the audiences, and honestly, this is a historic moment. It's never been done before. So we move with Melania Trump through a window into her life, highly curated, highly authored, from Palm Beach to New York City and into Washington, D.C., and we get to uncover what happens as a person becomes first lady of the United States again. This is why you mentioned the deal itself. The deal was really important, and it's a good deal for Amazon MGM. What they're doing is they're releasing a movie which, first, is exclusively in theaters. It will not be streaming. If your fans, if your audience today wants to see the film, they have to go into theaters to watch it. A worldwide launch in almost 30 nations across the globe. And the reason we're doing this is because Melania had this idea of creating a highly cinematic, gorgeous, highly stylized film appropriate for theaters. The visuals are beautiful. The sonic experience is first class. Your audiences are going to be very excited when they hear the music, the original score for the film, but a beautiful, beautiful range of music, too. So we're in theaters first across the globe. Advertising is going right now across Shibuya into Piccadilly Circus. We're on the side of the Duomo here in Times Square. And you've got to get into the theaters now if you want to catch this film. And Melania had clear ideas about that, as well, in terms of marketing this film. I know she's also ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday, celebrating one year of President Trump back in office. And she's done a lot. She's championed the Take It Down Act. She's had an executive order on fostering the future. She launched the Presidential Artificial Intelligence Challenge, the White House AI Task Force meeting with them, as well. $25 million for housing supports and the reunification efforts in Ukraine and Russia doing deals sideline to get those children back. Mark, tell us about her life today in terms of juggling all of that. I love the idea that she had a Zoom with 2,000 schools just on AI just last week. Yeah, it's immense. I mean, the achievements that you just listed from her first year in office as first lady is remarkable. You could see she's very focused this time around, focused on artificial intelligence, education, children. She's really working hard for the foster care individuals across our country. And she's hitting not just on the federal level in the United States, but internationally, too. It's amazing that she launched Fostering the Future Together, a global coalition from the United Nations General Assembly. The first inaugural meeting will be occurring in the White House this spring at the end of March. So tune in. You'll see that. The event that she had for 2,000 schools here in the United States just a week ago Friday in conjunction with Zoom communications was remarkable. So she's really leading this charge to make sure that American children are at the forefront of education when it comes to AI so they can impact their careers and keep America ahead of the curve. And she's doing all of this while still providing creative direction for the film, every element of production, post-production, creative direction for that trailer you played, Maria, creative direction for all of the television spots. I mean, she is so detail-oriented. The ad campaign that she launched, that iconic black-and-white imagery from Ellen Von Unworth, one of the most important fashion photographers on the planet, is all at Melania Trump's creative direction. I love that. Mark, real quick before you go, what was the reaction from the group on Saturday night? The president and Melania hosted a black-tie affair to have this screening with Melania and director Brett Ratner. What was the reaction to the film? We had a group of cultural iconoclasts in the East Room of the White House, and the reaction was inspiring. It was so warm. It was so natural. Everyone from Queen Rainier and Prince Badr to some of the great CEOs of our nation, AMD, Tim Cook from Apple, Zoom, the New York Stock Exchange—you mentioned she's ringing the bell this week. Lynn Martin joined us. And everybody was just so embracing and enthusiastic about this groundbreaking film. It's something that's going to disrupt the documentary category. All right. Well, we, of course, look forward to it. Mark, thanks so much. We so appreciate it. And congratulations to you, Mark. And, of course, congrats to the first lady. Mark, great to see you. Thanks for being here. Don't miss my one-on-one interview with the first lady, Melania Trump, this Thursday here on Mornings with Maria on Fox Business.