‘Melania’ Producer Marc Beckman on the Jonny Greenwood Dispute, the Tricky Politics of Licensing Stones or Prince Songs, and the First Lady’s Forthcoming Docuseries: ‘I Think Amazon MGM Got a Very Good Deal’

When a dispute arose over orchestral music originally composed for “The Phantom Thread” appearing in the new Melania Trump documentary, “Melania,” aficionados of music, film and politics all stood to pay attention. The subject of licensing music rights is fascinating and thorny enough in its own right. Add to that a member of Radiohead, Jonny Greenwood, and one of today’s top film directors, Paul Thomas Anderson, seeming to have a beef with the nation’s First Couple, and naturally it made headlines.

Marc Beckman, a producer of “Melania” and Mrs. Trump’s advisor of more than two decades, took to Breitbart News to describe the idea that the music was not properly licensed as “ridiculous” and “a blatant lie.” Now, in a wide-ranging interview with Variety, he’s further delving into the issues involved with that and other music he licensed for the film, with a candid take on just how tricky things can get when you’re procuring music for a movie that is bound to be polarizing. His view, which may not be shared by many Trump detractors, is that the road to the inauguration portrayed in “Melania” is such a non-political, non-ideological story, it’s silly for anyone to object to having their songs or score included.

The conversation also moved on to other topics related to “Melania.” These include: the vast disparity of reactions between paying attendees and critics; expectations for how the doc will perform when it premieres on Prime Video, and whether that will provide a big payoff for Amazon MGM‘s investment; what form the forthcoming Melania Trump streaming docuseries will take this summer; the duration of the Amazon deal, and what other plans might be in store for his and Trump’s production company, Muse Films.

On the matter of Greenwood v. Trump, it turns out the sides really aren’t so far apart in their understanding of what happened, even if the Radiohead guitarist-turned-film composer is not that pleased with the result. Everyone seems to agree that “Melania” film properly licensed the “Phantom” orchestral cue from Focus Gramercy Film Music, which is owned by Universal. Greenwood’s real issue is with the film studio, maintaining that he has a clause in his contracts that mandates he at least be contacted when his music is going to be re-used… though he might have little recourse to stop it, even thus informed.

In any case, it opens a fascinating window into music licensing, with Beckman candidly sharing that he had some successes and some misses as he procured songs for the film — all of which he said were either chosen or at least approved by Melania Trump — landing music by Michael Jackson, Tears for Fears, Aretha Franklin and the Rolling Stones but losing out on Prince and GNR. And yes, he was particularly proud of the “Phantom Thread” music, for its impact and because he considers himself a Radiohead head. (As for whether that would lead him to entertain Greenwood’s request… well, read on.)

“I feel like I bleed that movie now,” Beckman says of his work on this passion project, “if you cut me open, between that and her book” (also titled “Melania,” released in 2024). “Regardless of all the nonsense back and forth in the media and the politics and all that, we wanted to create something that was unique as a story that has certainly never been told before… not just showing more of the life of a person who has been selective on what to share, but also to do it in what we think is a more rich visual and sonic experience than typical for a documentary.” (The following Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.)

After all the news about Greenwood and Anderson wanting the “Phantom Thread” music out of your movie, what’s your take on that now?

It’s funny — Radiohead is one of my all-time favorite bands. For them to have come out publicly and distanced themselves, I think that’s just part of the unfortunate time we’re living in. We went out and created a nice film that doesn’t get into any kind of political policy or anything like that. The music at that moment is so perfect, honestly, I was so thrilled to be able to use it. Obviously, my background is as a lawyer. We work with the best lawyers; this is Melania Trump. We spent top dollars for all that music, and we’re thrilled to have that song included in the film. If they’re trying to distance themselves from us, for political reasons, that’s just unfortunate. But, honestly, I’ll still remain a fan and listen to their music every single day.

Some composers do have it in their contracts that the rights owner has to alert them about further usage, and some don’t. Greenwood always has it in his contract, according to his camp. Which doesn’t mean he could stop it, once informed.

On that issue, I found that it was like 50/50 — like half the time, they needed to (inform the composer), half the time they didn’t.

We were told the Greenwood camp doesn’t mean to sound like they’re demanding that his music be taken out of the theatrical version. It’s more of a request that it be removed for streaming. And I think they know they may not have a legal basis to demand it be taken out… it’s more just a request. Could you see honoring that?

No, of course not. Please tell him he’s welcome to call me if he wishes to discuss. But that song is in the film forever, regardless of the infrastructure which delivers the content.

Can you remind us where the “Phantom Thread” music appeared in your film?

That edgy, kind of nailbiting music right at that moment is so perfect. It’s in that scene where Melania Trump walks in on the president and she helps him on his inaugural speech. He says “peacemaker,” and she says, “peacemaker and unifier,” and then that extends into him using her language at the inauguration. It was so good. They’re (Radiohead) so talented — incredible music. But I’m very proud of what we did with the music in the entire film. It wasn’t easy. People do get political, so it’s incredible that we’re able to get the Rolling Stones and Elvis and Michael Jackson and even the song that we created, “Melania’s Waltz” (by composer Tony Neiman). I think we really pulled it off as far as the music goes.

“Billie Jean” must have been a must-get — Melania cites it as a favorite song of hers, and sings along to it in the car. Did you have anything that was most challenging to license?

I’ll tell you on the record, if you want to know. There was music that we tried to get, but sadly, there were politics to it. For example, the guys from Guns N’ Roses split down the middle politically. There was a beautiful song we wanted to use, and one of the guys — I don’t want to name, it’s not fair —said, “You got it. Go.” And the other one was basically like, “There’s just no way.” We needed everybody’s approval to get it in the film. So Guns N’ Roses was definitely a disappointment for us; we all have a lot of respect for Guns N’ Roses. And then there was a song that we wanted to use from Grace Jones; obviously, also a tremendous amount of respect for her. She apparently couldn’t get over the political hurdle, notwithstanding the fact that the film is not a political film. So that was disappointing, too. It’s disappointing when people put politics so far ahead, and that happened a little bit with the film, for sure. [Reps for GNR did not respond to Variety’s request for comment.]

The president always has songs played at his rallies, and some artists are fine with saying their music is for anybody who wants to use it, and then others have obviously made objections known.

I’ll tell you something interesting, though. My music roots go deep into classic rock, jazz, blues. If you take some time to research the First Lady, she also loves classic rock, and was brought up a kid in the ‘80s on Pink Floyd and this type of music. she loves. And one thing we learned — like an Easter egg surprise for me in the music with regards to “Melania” — is that we found a lot of the classic rock artists that were true freedom fighters in the ‘60s, who we never thought would go for it, came out and said that they were huge Trump fans. And then we would get blocked by the company that might have the ownership rights of that artist’s music. So, at least on a personal level, it was kind of surprising to hear some of these artists say, “Oh, I actually really like him. You don’t have to come and show me the film or anything. I would be happy to do it.” But then, as you know, these guys are selling their catalogs, and the rights holders are like, “Not a chance.”

People might think that if it just comes down to rights holders who are looking to maximize the value of their investment, they might not have the same objections that an artist might.

There’s a reverse on this one too. I think Prince sold the rights to Primary Wave. And the Primary Wave guys were like, “Oh yeah, we’d be happy to go ahead and give you guys the rights to this Prince song,” But in that instance, it’s my understanding that the deal was such that the estate now needs to approve what Primary Wave does with it. Literally we were ready to go, and and this lawyer that manages the estate was like, “Prince would never want his song associated with Donald Trump.” And we’re like, “But it’s not a Donald Trump film! He comes into the movie once in a while, but this is all about Melania. It’s not political.” And that guy blocked it. It’s so ridiculous. [A rep for Prince’s estate did not respond to Variety’s request for comment.]

At some point, I would love to tell the full story. Some of the old artists that are my heroes said yes, and then we couldn’t get it done because of the rights holders. But it was shocking. Some of the artists you would never think would say yes jumped on it right away. I was like, “Wow, I love this person even more now.”

Are there any of those unexpected allies whose names you’d feel comfortable sharing?

I don’t want to, because I promise those people that I wouldn’t hurt them. You could put this on the record. Some of them are afraid that because their fan base is so liberal, progressive, that they would lose their fans. And there’s no reason for me to hurt anyone. I respect their work and that they’re also trying to earn money and take care of their families, so I’d prefer to leave it like this.

With the Rolling Stones, it’s a unique situation with the the ABKCO years versus the later years. And so when people heard “Gimme Shelter” at the beginning, they’re like, did the Stones sign off on this? But they don’t have to with that part of their catalog.

Mick Jagger was actually involved. He gave us his blessing, and we were thrilled about that one. We worked very close with them on that. That wasn’t something that we just pulled out. And that wasn’t a political thing. With the Stones, they were just like, “Oh, you’re making a nice movie.” They were like able to get over the hurdle: It’s not politics —  it’s just some story about some woman that is going from being a civilian back into the White House, and this movie looks cool and Brett (Ratner) is doing a cool job and Melania Trump is focused, and let’s do it. We showed it to them and they were impressed. [Reps for the Stones said they couldn’t speak directly to Beckman’s account of the group’s approval, but reiterated that ABKCO owns the song.]

I hope the takeaway is that, with the music, we kept a good pace. When we wanted to be poignant, like in the Arlington Cemetery scene, it was incredible. The Marine sendoff… I don’t know if you caught the reference, but that piece of classical music was also used in “A Clockwork Orange.” If you go do a little research, it’s pretty cool that we use that song in particular at that moment. [The music is an excerpt from Rossini’s 1817 opera “The Thieving Magpie,” about a wrongfully accused maidservant. It was used during scenes of mayhem in Stanley Kubrick’s film, and plays in “Melania” during a scene of President Biden and his wife leaving the White House for the final time.]

I think it’s worth knowing that Melania Trump was involved and she selected every single song in the film. She came up with the creative idea (for the movie), but then also worked deep in the production. She was in the edit room regularly, and every single song in that film was selected and approved by Melania Trump. She was very hands-on with the music. When we had “Sunny” at the end [a cover of the 1966 Bobby Hebb pop standard, a European smash in 1976 for the Eurodisco group Boney M.], I thought that was a beautiful, uplifting finale. Melania thought, “This could be a great way to finish the film and keep people upbeat as they’re walking out.” And we’ve heard that people like that.

When we used Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” it was her idea to use it without the vocals. She wanted to use the song because it’s perfect, but at the same time, the vocals came out because she didn’t want the vocals competing with everything else in that moment. So she was so deeply involved in song selection and then also how the music was executed. She’s instinctively able to do that.

Some of the reviews noted a possible irony to the use of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” — like, does that imply that Trump really does want to be king? —so it seemed like removing the vocals was one way to not have that issue come up so much.

No, that’s not it. We didn’t put it in there because they were going to D.C. in that scene. We put it in there because it just was a nice, catchy song to have there, and the vocals were removed only because we didn’t want the vocals competing with her voiceover. And that was her idea, a very good idea, actually. … But if the audience wants to take that message away that you’re giving, you know, we’ll play with that all day long. It’s kind of fun. Similar implication with the “Clockwork Orange” song. Kind of cool.

Let’s talk about how “Melania” played out as a big-screen release. There could have been a choice made along the way to have it just premiere on Prime. Was theatrical always envisioned from day one?

It was always Melania Trump’s and my plan to launch exclusively in theaters. We wanted to do something that had this type of high-quality, rich cinematic experience. We realized that most of the world doesn’t go to theaters anymore, post-COVID. But we thought we could do something that was groundbreaking creatively, highly stylized, rich colors, interesting audio experience, and that was always our goal. Part of the reason why we selected Amazon MGM was because they understood what it was that the First Lady wanted to achieve creatively and gave us the ability to launch this really wide as far as theaters go, both domestically and internationally. Internationally, we’re in about 30 different countries.

Did it seem risky at all to go into theaters, knowing there’d be so much attention to box office? The press did go with the angle of how it had a surprisingly good turnout, after the first weekend, but you couldn’t have been certain it wouldn’t go the other way. And there are still stories about how theatrical gross won’t cover the budget.

Well, I’ve been working with the First Lady in this capacity for over two decades, almost 25 years — pre-Trump presidency, in-between and since. So we’re very sober about how the people that want to get political — the left — would attack, and the right would say it’s the best thing ever. That’s why we did everything we can to create a film that was loaded with integrity as it relates to telling a story that’s never been told before, creating a visual and sonic package that’s never been put together in this way for a documentary before. From a commercial perspective, when you talk about box office, first, we’re proud of the fact that it landed at the highest opening for a documentary in 14 years (excluding concert films), or maybe even more than that. We’re proud that the CinemaScore was an A, and that the Popcorn Meter [on Rotten Tomatoes] was 99% [now 98%]. It’s OK that a majority of the people who went to see it in the beginning were people that were fans of hers. That makes sense; it’s just like a majority of the people that would go to see a Spider-Man movie in the beginning would be fans of Spider-Man. We expected the fans to come out first, so it’s nice that they approve.

But as far as the commercial performance goes, and I think one of your colleagues wrote about this… I’ve been looking at what Variety‘s been doing, naturally, and I think this might not be isolated to your colleague who wrote about the commercial success of the film. People are not looking at it the way that both our camp is and Amazon MGM’s camp is, to be honest with you. Although Amazon paid us what has been reported as a record-breaking sum for a documentary, I actually think they got a very good deal. And I’ll tell you why. What’s not being recorded is the long tail here. This is a deal that has the film being launched worldwide for theatrical purposes, and then obviously eventually we go to streaming, and the film will be in streaming for many years. And then after that we’re also launching a docuseries, which you might have read about. The docuseries is going to tell a whole different story in a different way, and that will also go worldwide. So, you know, it’s predictable that the investment that Amazon MGM made pales in comparison [to the overall payoff] at the end of the day, given that, first, it’s a fun movie to see, but it’s also historically relevant, so people will probably keep going back to it. I’m sure that with the numbers at the end of the day — from the performance to the numbers that Amazon benefits from as it relates to getting new subscribers to Prime — it will be very successful for them.

So is it safe you say you think the theatrical release is, to some degree, a very attention-getting teaser that draws attention to the bigger viewership it’ll have on streaming?

Yeah, I completely agree with that. This movie has become a part of American culture very quickly. People are looking at it in the geopolitical space internationally. All of a sudden, the story about it in the context of Radiohead — the way you and I connected — it’s interesting. It really did become part of the cultural nomenclature. But I think at the end of the day, we really appreciate our relationship with Amazon MGM, and we’re gonna do everything we can on our side to continue to promote and support the success of the film, and then ultimately the docuseries as well, and we’ll make it stick and be a good experience for them. If you look at the Celine Dion numbers with regards to subscriptions on streaming [the 2024 doc “I Am Celine Dion” became Prime Video’s top documentary and was touted as bringing the service fresh subscribers], that was impressive. My goal is to really just be that, and I think we could, so we’ll see what happens.

Amazon has a limited license on the documentary. Can you say how long that will last, and where the film will live after that? Or will it always stay on Amazon?

I prefer to not provide specific details out of respect to all the parties involved, but we can tell you it’s a short-term license. Then, hopefully, the film will be performing and the docuseries will perform strong enough so that Amazon will come back to the table and negotiate an extension. I think at that point in time, if some of the other streamers that I spoke with early on in the negotiation are interested in building it out, we would certainly appreciate that and entertain that and go from there. But this deal that we put together with them, it’s a substantial deal, but it’s short-term. Our goal is to obviously monetize this film. That’s why we maintained ownership over it, and that was why we decided to develop this ourselves. Our goal is to have it become an evergreen commercial success for us.

When do you expect the docuseries you’re working on will arrive on Prime?

We’re still working out the date with Amazon as far as the launch goes. We’re pretty much almost done with it on the post-production side now. I think, conservatively predicting, mid-summer we’ll launch. We haven’t definitively picked a date yet, but it should be around then.

Do you feel like the docuseries will feel like a sequel to “Melania,” or be an entirely different animal?

If you take a look at what we did with Melania’s books, we had two books come out. One was the New York Times bestseller for like 13 weeks, I think, and we call it the trade book. That’s the black book, smaller version, with the white Melania logo on it. Then we launched the collectors’ edition, and one launched pretty much right kind of almost after the other, almost immediately, similar to what we’re talking about here with regards to the film and the docuseries. The collectors’ edition is better quality, coffee-table; it almost has this leather-like white texture on the outside with the black logos, including a lot of photos that Melania personally took that aren’t in the other book. And then the stories are told a little bit differently; both stand on their own. We had really good success with both books because people wanted the collectors’ edition and people wanted the trade edition.

And that’s how Melania has looked at this film. She doesn’t want to ever put people in a position where they aren’t fully satisfied with any product she puts out. For the docuseries, we are going to launch a piece that really stands on its own, in a very different style as it relates to the story that we’re telling. The story is different as well. Whereas the film was created really deliberately for theaters from the start, the docuseries doesn’t have that same type of approach.

There’s a lot that we weren’t able to fit in into the film; it’s only an hour and 44 minutes. The docuseries allows for us to go deeper into things surrounding her family, her business, her philanthropy; we can unpack a lot more. You can imagine that if we shot the film for 20 days, there’s a lot that we didn’t incorporate into the film. So we can use a lot of that footage that has never been seen before to tell the story in a way that hasn’t been told yet. … It’s not less as it relates to the overall aesthetic from a video and audio perspective, but the way we tell the story is very different. The docuseries feels more like you would expect a docuseries to feel.

We were very deliberate with regards to the film about not calling it a documentary because we wanted it to feel like a feature film. That’s why we brought Brett into it. But here, you’ll hear deeper interviews of the first lady talking about topics… In the film you might have noticed she never sat down and was answering questions or looking into the camera in a typical talking-head, warehouse-behind-her type of way. We don’t do that in the docuseries, either, but you get more of the in-depth type of question/answer analysis.

What in store for Melania’s production deal? Do you see that expanding past the docuseries?

Our exclusive focus right now is getting the docuseries to a place where it’s perfect. But we have a deal in place. As you know, the First Lady created Muse Films. And when I went out into the negotiation, what I learned across the board is that a lot of these big streamers said to me, “You know, we’ve been ignoring half of the American public for a long time.” You know, we’re not gonna take Muse Films and launch a show about Mitch McConnell and get all political. But I think conservative viewers would like to hear on topics — let’s say lifestyle topics: fashion, art, music, sports, entertainment, even technology — through the lens of a conservative personality. So I can tell you, for sure, we have some stories already that we’d like to leverage. I referenced the bestselling book, for example. Keep in mind, this film only covered 20 days of her life, so I have the ability now to find a partner that can cover her life story. The bestselling book stops for the most part after the first administration. We have all those years following that and beyond, so I think we could create some special content.

How many hours will the docuseries be?

It’s not going to be an extensive six- or seven-episodes type of thing. We’re probably looking at two episodes— maybe three episodes — and we’ll figure that out. We’re basing it on quality, more so than time.

There’s the extremely positive Rotten Tomatoes audience and CinemaScore grades. And then, of course, the disparity has been noted between the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and the critics’ score [which now stands at 11%]. You must have anticipated that, but feel OK if the core audience felt you delivered.

We actually wanted to appeal to everyone. That’s why we advertised in places like CNN and MSNBC: We wanted people to know who the First Lady in the United States is. Again, this isn’t a political, policy-oriented message. It’s just a nice story about this woman and her family and philanthropy and business, historically for our country. So we actually really wanted it to go to everyone. But obviously the fans go first, right?

(With the critics), it’s fine. What really is a critic’s job today? It’s worse than bias. It’s like they’re voting, with political ideology first. There were some critiques I read that didn’t even talk about the film; they only spoke about President Trump. That’s just unfortunately where we are today in society. It would be better for us all if we can get back to being sensible. And this huge disparity that you’re talking about — I did read that it’s the biggest ever in history — is just a sign of the times.

Look, we had our third reunification of Ukrainian and Russian children with their families this week. And it’s the best work that we’ve ever done. It’s such an amazing thing to bring these people back to their families. And there were people in the media, including CNN for example, that criticized, saying, “Well, it’s not enough kids, not enough people.” Some things really don’t need to be ideologically based. It’s just a nice thing that these individuals are returned with their families, and it doesn’t have to be like a left versus a right thing. It could just be a great story. Everybody should know it, but it doesn’t get covered.

If you look at this Ukrainian-Russian war, nobody’s really made any tangible advances towards peace, except Melania Trump with these reunifications. Think about it. NATO puts more money into more weapons for Ukraine, and every time there’s more negotiation, you see people saying, “Oh, we’re making progress,” yet the war continues and people are still dying and being disfigured. The First Lady of the United States is actually rescuing people, saving their lives, bringing them back together with their families, and the critics will still bash her because they don’t like her husband’s politics. So it’s not surprising they would do this with the film.

I appreciate the fact that people are spending an hour and 44 minute of their lives, plus spending some money to go into the box office and see it. … A close family friend of mine said she went as part of a mother/daughter scenario, and her daughter, who’s college-aged, said, “Oh, this is so cool. Melania Trump is business-oriented, but she’s really into her family too.” And maybe that next generation of college-age kids could be inspired to go hard with family and go hard with business and their careers and do something a little bit more. So that’s what I hope for. You know, I’m not a filmmaker. I guess now I am a filmmaker, but I’m not from Hollywood. So I’m grateful that people are willing to give the movie the time of day and walk away with something positive.