Will Melania Trump’s $75 million movie play to empty theaters?

At CMX Cinemas in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, near Melania Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, tickets were selling pretty briskly this week for Friday’s cinematic release of “Melania,” the first lady’s big-budget documentary about her return to the White House last year.

About half the seats for the screenings in the small, 126-seat theater at CMX Cinemas were already sold as of Tuesday. But elsewhere around the country, Americans were not rushing to movie theater websites to buy advanced seats...