Melania, director Brett Ratner's new piece of quasi-documentary propaganda about current US First Lady Melania Trump, has a score from the composer Tony Neiman. But the film also apparently uses a portion of the Oscar-nominated score that Radiohead composer Jonny Greenwood composed for frequent collaborator Paul Thomas Anderson's 2017 movie Phantom Thread. Greenwood and Anderson are asking for that piece of music to be removed from the film.
In a joint press statement that went out this morning, Greenwood and Anderson say that the use of the Phantom Thread music in Melania is a breach of contract, since Universal, the company that owns the copyright, did not consult him on licensing that music. Here's their statement:
It has come to our attention that a piece of music from Phantom Thread has been used in the Melania documentary. While Jonny Greenwood does not own the copyright in the score, Universal failed to consult Jonny on this third-party use which is a breach of his composer agreement. As a result Jonny and Paul Thomas Anderson have asked for it to be removed from the documentary.
In other news, Melania took a 67% dive in its second weekend at the box office. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Melania brought in $2.4 million over Super Bowl weekend, coming in a #10. Amazon, which reportedly paid $40 million for the rights to the doc and another $35 million to market it, put out a press release claiming that its theatrical performance "validates our holistic distribution strategy, building awareness, engagement and provides momentum ahead of the film’s eventual debut on Prime Video."
