The Superbowl? Man plans, God laughs.
The weekend box office? Disney plans, Billy Ray Cyrus laughs -- all the way to the bank. The 3D concert film "Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour" grossed $29 million at 683 theaters, for a downright frightening $42,459 per-theater-average. As usual, the house that Walt built knows how to market a property like processed cheese (a decent description of Miley's music, incidentally) while increasing its value by making it look scarce. If you told a nine-year-old girl that she had only one week to see the Hannah Montana movie and that if she missed it she'd become a social leper, well, of course she'd sell her prized Zac Efron toilet plunger to see it. And of course Disney would then have to turn around Monday morning and announce "Engagement Extended Due to Overwhelming Demand". Are you listening, junior MBAs? Today's lesson is called "How to Print Money by Leveraging Pre-Pubescent Girls."
The film got decent reviews, though, and its success -- and that of U2 3D -- means we'll be seeing a lot more bulbous concert movies in the coming months. I'd love to see "Prince 3D" but we'd probably all have to wear protective raingear.
Coming in at #2 for the weekend, with less than half of the "Hannah Montana" gross, was the Jessica Alba J-horror remake "The Eye." Other newbies "Over Her Dead Body" and "Strange Wilderness" -- true first-quarter dogs -- failed to break $5 million apiece.
More grosses at the Box Office Mojo chart and Leonard Klady at Movie City News.
