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[Anthony]

Crazy stuff... :lol:



http://www.thefilmfactory.co.uk/cinema/ ... na_3d.html / http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/hannahmontana3d/

[Kristof]

From IMDB.com

Disney underestimated just how many parents on Super Bowl Sunday would drop off their kids at theaters showing Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds 3-D.After predicting that the movie would earn $29 million, the studio learned Monday that Sunday's actual sales came in at $2 million more than it had estimated -- bringing the weekend total to $31.12 million. Playing on just 683 3-D screens, it averaged $45,561 per theater -- a record for any wide-release film and far surpassing the previous record of $35,540 set by Spider-Man 3. As word of the sales results came in, Disney announced that it would extend the release of the film on a market-by-market basis. Numerous 3-D theaters currently showing the Cyrus concert film have already been lined up by distributors of U2's upcoming 3-D concert film, due to open next week. However, several major cities now boast several 3-D theaters, including Los Angeles, where the El Capitan Theatre announced Monday that it would extend the run of the Cyrus film through March 1. (Disney owns the theater.) "We don't want to turn away kids from the theaters who couldn't get into the [live] concerts," Disney distribution chief Chuck Viane told USA Today.

[Anthony]

Even more crazy!! But very good for Disney Channel to have something to boast about that isn't HSM.

Speaking of which, if this film did so well just on digital screens, imagine how HSM 3 is going to do... :shock:

I can't say this is something I'll be rushing to see though.

[GeoffD]

Thats a lot of money... HSM 3 well, wow is all i can say right now

[howtodeal]

Hannah Montana's CD sold more than 2 Million copies i think  :shock:
She is very popular in the U.S, I personaly enjoy watching the show with my niece  :-"
Can't say the same about HSM  :roll:

[Anthony]

Things you don't expect to see in The Guardian. Number 1: an article charting the rise of Hannah Montana. :shock:  :lol:

Achy breaky smarts

Could fictional tween icon Hannah Montana overtake Mickey Mouse as Disney's biggest star? Jonathan Bernstein charts the rise and rise of Billy Ray's daughter Miley Cyrus  



On January 25 a 16-year-old boy boarded a flight to Nashville concealing on his person a pair of handcuffs, a roll of duct tape and a length of rope. Had airport police been less vigilant, he might have got away with his plan to hijack and crash the plane into a Hannah Montana concert.

On December 29 last year, the mother of a six-year-old girl whose moving essay about the death of her father in a roadside bombing in Iraq won her tickets to a Hannah Montana concert admitted that the essay was entirely fictitious. "We did whatever we could do to win," said the mother in her defence.

On October 4, 2007, the entire 54 dates on the Hannah Montana Best Of Both Worlds Tour sold out in four minutes, causing a tsunami of hysterical, bereft pre-teens and putting the nation's confused, beleaguered parents in the position of having to shell out thousands of dollars for scalped tickets.

That's a considerable amount of controversy to be resting on the slim shoulders of a peppy 15-year-old girl who doesn't actually exist. The American Idol franchise may command bigger audience figures and generate more income but in the uncertain world of mass entertainment, there is no corporate entity more skilled at creating stars than the Disney Channel. And the reason the cable network, originally intended as nothing more ambitious than a repository for old movies and TV shows, is so ruthlessly efficient at unearthing, indoctrinating and exploiting tween icons is that it used to be rubbish at it.

In 1993, The Mickey Mouse Club - the network's immortal kid-aimed variety show - included, among its all-singing, all-dancing, all-quipping ensemble the likes of Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, Keri Russell and Ryan Gosling. That's a hefty allocation of potential future earnings and Disney managed to capitalise on exactly none of it. "We found these little pishers," the corporation may have collectively fumed. "We put those blinding white smiles on their faces, we taught them to sing in key and move with a modicum of rhythm. Next time we get our claws on some telegenic tweens, we're keeping them in-house and the millions we make off their sweat stays with us. Ahahahaha!" (Cue maniacal laugh from the direction of Walt's cryonic chamber).

The first beneficiary of the new Disney initiative was Hilary Duff, who won the hearts and the pocket money of American teenage girls who followed her Lizzie McGuire character through a TV show and a spinoff movie, and hung around in significant enough numbers to allow Duff a surprisingly long-lasting pop career. Hot on Duff's heels, several members of failed R&B trio 3LW found to their bemusement that, while they had no audience as a real group, the moment they donned the mantle of fictional girl band the Cheetah Girls, a million shrieking admirers sang along to their songs. The High School Musical phenomenon provided devastating proof that, without any airplay outside of Disney's own radio stations and any video exposure beyond its own cable channel, the corporation could do what the record industry had spent the last decade failing to achieve: it could create a pop culture event.

The only chink in High School Musical's otherwise impregnable armour is that the brand is the star. Sure, Zac Efron may have bared his hairless pecs and rouged cheeks on the cover of Rolling Stone and castmates Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale and Corbin Bleu have all released records but, to date, none of them have come close to emulating the starpower of the 1990s Mickey Mouse Club alumni. Are any tears being shed in the privacy of Disney boardrooms over this? Doubtful, because the corporation has its own chart-topping, record-shattering idol in the unlikely shape of Miley Cyrus.

The term "unlikely" is cruel but appropriate only because Miley brought with her the burden of being known, initially, solely as the offspring of country hunk Billy Ray Cyrus. In the US, at least, that pedigree conjures up one thing: a mullet. Then it conjures up Billy's signature line-dancing classic, Achy Breaky Heart. Disney didn't care about Miley's lineage. Well, it cared a bit. The corporation's talent executives, all of them blessed with the disturbing facility to appraise a tween performer and instantly decide whether they have that indefinable quality that makes them special but not too special, deliberated for at least a year over whether Miley possessed the potential to make American girls want her as their imaginary best friend.

The concept for Hannah Montana was simple. In fact, it was simple-minded: nationally-adored country-pop star moves from her Tennessee home and relocates to California where she wants to live the high school life of a normal girl but still be able to bask in the worship of weeping fans. So she dons a blonde wig when she's on stage and wanders the corridors of Malibu High unrecognised when sporting her natural locks. If you're under 11, this is total wish-fulfilment. Miley's sitcom - which exploited her parentage by casting dad Billy Ray as her embarrassing redneck lunkhead Pa - was an instant classic among the Disney Channel demographic. More importantly, the accompanying soundtrack, credited to the fictional Hannah, was a huge hit in 2006, a year when even artists used to having huge hits were mumbling excuses about piracy and narrowing audiences. What Disney did next to capitalise on Miley's multi-platform success elevates them into the realm of genius and, by comparison, makes Simons Fuller and Cowell seem like chancers selling bruised apples from a leaky barrel. Released in July 2007, the double CD set Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus pulled off a double whammy, acting as the soundtrack to the show's second season while simultaneously separating the fictional character from the actress and debuting Miley as a nascent pop star in her own right. If you think (too much) about it, what Disney accomplished with this maneouvre was to create a performer who was a mixture of 1990s Britney, 1980s Madonna, 1970s Bowie and 1960s Motown. And speaking as someone who has stumbled unknowingly over a couple of the songs credited to (and co-penned by) Miley Cyrus and wondered what collection of obscure new wave bubblegum nuggets was playing, it has to be said her raspy voice and unaffected exuberance makes her one of the finest fictional pop stars ever to emerge from a cocoon and pass herself off as human.

Acrimony may have accompanied the Best Of Both Worlds Tour - fans were up in arms when a YouTube clip revealed a stunt double was lipsyncing during the crucial segment in which Hannah magically transforms into Miley - but heartbroken tweens denied a ticket to the big event were healed by another stroke of Disney genius. On February 1, Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: The Best Of Both Worlds Concert Tour movie was released. For one week only. On Superbowl weekend. And even though some 97 million sentient Americans made the Superbowl the second most watched TV event of all time, the Miley concert movie still scared up some $30m and, by an amazing coincidence, crushed U2's 3D concert movie, which also opened that weekend. Naturally Disney extended its run to capitalise on the demand.

What does the future hold for Miley Cyrus? More controversy certainly - she's already weathered pregnant-at-14 rumours and the web presence of photos showing her liplocked with her BFF - and the inevitable defection of at least half the tots who threatened suicide when they couldn't get to see her show. But her old man was a much-mocked one-hit wonder with a mullet and he's managed to cling on to visibility many years beyond his sell-by date. If anyone knows how to keep Miley Cyrus in circulation long after she ought to have hung up her wig, it's Disney.

· Hannah Montana - Concert In 3D is out Mar 14

http://music.guardian.co.uk/pop/story/0 ... 80,00.html