'Hannah Montana' sings high note

By Sarah Sluis

Kids really can rule the world...or at least the box office. Tweens turned out in force for Hannah Montana: The Movie, which opened to $34 million. It's the largest April opening for Disney, and a surprise number-one finish. The previous week's winner, Fast & Furious, dropped a steep 59%, leaving Hannah Montana room to grab the top spot. The news definitively proves that star Miley Cyrus can open movies (her concert film last year posted a similarly spectacular opening weekend), but pessimists can still harp that it's her alter ego that draws in audiences. They'll soon have a chance to prove their case (or not): Her transition film, The Last Song, a romance penned by Nicholas Sparks, starts filming this June. A caveat: Many Hannah Montana fans will still be way too young to watch that film, as I suspect the Montana audience skews younger than the 7 to 13 year-olds tracking surveys say were Cyrus' main audience this past weekend. I was astonished to see a preschooler on a bus, fidgeting because her nanny was ignoring her in favor of US Weekly, suddenly shriek and point out the one tabloid figure recognizable to her: "Miley! Miley!" Those pre-K kids will go see a G-rated Hannah Montana movie, but their parents might give pause before taking them to a movie billed as romance.

Monsters vs. Aliens coasted through at number three, dropping just 30% to earn $22.6 million. Seth Rogen-starrer Observe and Report opened lower than expected with $11.1 million. While its dark humor clearly differentiated it from that other Segway security guard film, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, the drug use, violence, and ambiguous date rape thinned the audiences, giving it an opening in line with Rogen's other tough sell, Zack and Miri Make a Porno.

Lower down on the list, Dragonball Evolution opened at number eight. Based on an anime franchise popular a decade before, the title has lost most of its cachet here but is doing well abroad. It earned a modest $4.6 million, about all Fox expected.

Three films in the top ten are in their fourth week of release: Knowing (#5, $6.6 million), I Love You, Man (#5, $6.4 million) and Duplicity (#10, $2.9 million), with only Duplicity below the $50 million mark. Playing at just three locations, rock band documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil had the highest per-screen average of the week, earning $11,000 at each theatre.

This friday, Zac Efron will compete for the Disney audience in Warner Bros.' 17 Again, along with British-accented action sequel Crank: High Voltage and Washington D.C. reporter thriller State of Play.

CYRUS SPARKS TO TEEN ROMANCE

By Sarah Sluis

Miley Cyrus has just made the shrewdest career move ever.  Forget adapting an existing novel, Cyrus' team has commissioned Nicholas Sparks to write a book and screenplay tailored for her.  Her team has
good reason to want so much control over her next film.  The incredibly bankable star of Disney's Hannah Montana, singer of sold-out concerts and a record-breaking IMAX concert film, is literally growing out of her role, making her success in a teen-to-adult part crucial.  With her slightly racy Annie Leibovitz-led Vanity Fair shoot a misfire, the Cyrus team is under extra pressure to prove she has the ability to switch to teen and adult roles�enter proven property, Nicholas Sparks.

Sparks' books have been great vehicles for teen-to-adult stars.  Featuring pull-on-heartstring romances and strong family ties, and having enraptured legions of female viewers, these films are exactly what growing Hannah Montana fans will seek.  Singer Mandy Moore benefited from her turn as a preacher's daughter with a terminal disease in A Walk to Remember, and Rachel McAdams' career took off after she followed her performance as Queen Bee in Mean Girls with an is-that-her? performance later that summer as sweet Southern Allie Hamilton in The Notebook.  The Notebook in particular had an indie following that resonated with teen viewers.  The word-of-mouth tagline (which no marketer could have thought up) went something like: "Have you seen The Notebook yet?  Ohmigod, I cried so hard, I was just bawling."  Montana fans, who similarly engage in the content across platforms by buying CDs, going to concerts, and dressing up like her as Halloween, will need an emotionally engaging film that will inspire multiple viewings and collaborative chatter.

The genre, too, represents a shift from childhood wish fulfillment to teenage wish fulfillment.  Miley Cyrus made her fame out of the proven "teen double life" genre, which I remember from my Nickelodeon childhood days.  A literal representation of a childhood desire to be special and to become independent, they involve tweens who have access to a "phone booth" moment, wherein they transform to a television star ("The Famous Jett Jackson"), rock star ("Hannah Montana"), or superpower liquid ("The Secret World of Alex Mack").  What makes these television shows so compelling is their preservation of the awkward, normal tween character.  Shifting between the normal and super personas, viewers experience the transformation moment again and again.  Sparks' adaptations keep the fairy tale in the romance, making its couples part of a special, fated love blocked by circumstances, you guessed it, again and again.  If Hannah Montana tapped into a kid's desire to be special, a Nicholas Sparks adaptation will tap into the teen desire to be loved by someone special�a perfect project to allow Hannah Montana to age with her viewers as they transition to adulthood.