Miley Cyrus’ Hannah Montana: The Movie jumped out to a big lead at the box office and never looked back on this competitive holiday weekend. The Disney Channel adaptation took first place with a hefty, better-than-anticipated $34 million gross, according to early estimates from Media by Numbers.
That total exceeds the $31.1 mil that Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert opened with a year ago (although this film played in many more theaters), and it amounts to one of the top April debuts ever. Among live-action G-rated fare, this premiere ranks second all time, behind the $42 mil that High School Musical 3: Senior Year banked on its first weekend about six months ago. And Hannah Montana: The Movie did it all on the strength of a solid A CinemaScore review from a crowd that, not surprisingly, was 91 percent female and 77 percent under age 25.
Coming in at No. 2 was Fast & Furious, which earned a solid $28.8 mil on an expected 59 percent drop. Vin Diesel’s car-franchise film has grossed $118 mil domestically — and about $200 mil globally — in 10 days. Monsters vs. Aliens (No. 3) was next with a strong third-weekend take of $22.6 mil.
Seth Rogen’s Observe and Report disappointed in fourth place, with just $11.1 mil. Despite critical huzzahs, the R-rated mall-cop comedy drew a bad C CinemaScore review from a crowd that was two-thirds male. Next stop for it: home video.
Knowing rounded out the top five with $6.7 mil. And the weekend’s other big new release, Dragonball: Evolution, was, as many predicted, a non-factor, bringing in $4.7 mil at No. 8 (and drawing a woeful C+ CinemaScore grade of its own).
Overall, the combined strength of the weekend’s top three films pushed the frame up nearly 50 percent over the same period a year ago, when the Prom Night remake ruled the returns. Thus, this is the third “up” weekend in a row — and second straight hugely up weekend — and, with a $137 mil overall domestic take, it’s also the biggest Easter weekend ever. Certainly, in Hollywood, that’ll be something to celebrate on this holiday. Have a good one!
More Box Office News:
Box Office Preview: Hannah Montana takes on Fast & Furious
Fast & Furious shatters records with $72.5 mil weekend
Monsters vs. Aliens opens at No. 1 with $58.2 mil
Knowing cruises to weekend victory
Race to Witch Mountain casts a spell at No. 1
EW.com’s Box Office Chart
addCredit(“Kerry Hayes”)
In February 2008, Time Magazine called George Clooney “The Last Movie Star,” because he was the supposedly the last “star” who was both famous and could “open” a movie. (Time Magazine actually acknowledged that most celebrities cannot actually “open” a movie.) Weeks after labeling Clooney as “The Last Movie Star,” Clooney’s new movie, “Leatherheads,” was a huge flop, making barely 30 million total.
In October of last year, Joshua Rich himself noted that “Body of Lies” was a referendum on Hollywood’s “star system” — the movie had super-A-list celebrities Leonardo DiCaprio and Russel Crowe in an action movie. The advertising for the movie showed little of the movie’s plot, instead focusing on the two stars. That, of course, was the reason it flopped — finishing in a distant third place behind repeat number one, “Beverly Hills Chihauhua.” People go to movies to see movies, not famous faces. If they don’t know what a movie’s about, they won’t see it.
Which brings us to this week…
This week’s results should be the death of these stupid claims that actors can open movies, or people see movies because of which actor is in them. (Numerous scientific studies have already proven this fact, although folks in the industry prefer to operate as lemmings, repeating back and forth to each other that so-and-so is a box office draw… at least until his next flop, at which point the actor in whatever movie was successful is newly crowned a box office draw.)
By any stretch of the imagination, Seth Rogen is a bigger “star” than Kevin James — Rogen was the “star” in 100+ million movies, such as Knocked Up and Superbad. For Kevin James, Paul Blart Mall Cop was his first solo starring role. And yet, during its opening week, Paul Blart made more than double what Rogen’s movie made. Note that both movies were comedies, and in fact, both were about mall cops. So if Rogen’s such a big star, why wasn’t he a hit?
Answer… is coming up…
The answer is simple. When Mall Cop came out, the idea of a heroic mall cop seemed ridiculous and funny and a fresh idea. When Rogen’s version came out, it felt like a repeat of a now-old joke. Seth Rogen’s supposed star power was worthless because the concept no longer seemed original. Also, to be frank, the TV ads for Mall Cop were much better than the ads for Rogen’s Observe and Report. So Mall Cop looked fresh and funnier. The “stars” had nothing to do with it.
Josh Rich — I haven’t mocked your bad predictions for weeks now. But if you continue to base predictions on the “star quality” in the movie, I will return to ridiculing you. You knew back in October (Body of Lies) that A-list actors have nothing to do with whether a movie is successful or not. You know this, and yet you continue repeating the industry’s nonsense. You will do better predictions if you stop repeating nonsense that you know is nonsense.
Good luck next week.
While your overall claim that there is no such thing as star power anymore may indeed be true, your “proof” to back up that claim is laughable. Paul Blart is a PG-rated family-friendly comedy. Observe and Report is an R-rated adult comedy. To expect it to have similar box office numbers is idiotic at best. They may both be comedies focused around mall security, but that is where the similarities end.
I agree with you to a point. However, I think the real story is, if a movie looks good, people will go see it. If a movie looks good AND has stars, it can only help.
Conversely, if a movie is bad, regardless of marquee names, it will tank. However, a bad movie with “movie stars” in it can still draw in more $$$ than one with no stars, at least in the first weekend.
Put it this way, Observe and Report did pretty poorly, but how much less would it have made with no recognizable stars? It probably would not have even cracked the top 10. On the other hand, Dragonball, a movie with no marquee names, probably could have earned a few more million had it starred a Leo or Matt Damon. Enough to be profitable? Maybe not. But marquee names certainly can help open a film.
It’s a sad day when Hannah Montana makes $30 million at the box office. Very sad indeed.
Hannah Montana kills both Seth Rogan and Vin Diesel…wow!
http://tvdonewright.wordpress.com/
hanna montana is soooo way over her head! she sucks! who would want to listen to her besides a five yr old?! i mean seriously!!shes sooooo retarded! id rather watch the osbournes in action!(if that makes sense)!!!!!
@ not the actor 1: the reason why Time said that George Clooney was the last movie star was not because he “was both famous and could open a movie”. Read the article and you would see why they made such a statement…
Maybe Miley will go away and never come back after this movie. I think we’re all kinda sick of her now. It’s time for us to find a real role model to look up to.
Presently, there is only one actor who can open a movie(and who deserves the extremely high salary that many actors make and that’s Will Smith. His track record speaks for itself.
I’d have thought that about Will Smith too, until Seven Pounds came out that is.
roger: Nearly all Seth Rogen’s previous comedies were R-rated. Think of Pineapple Express or Knocked Up, for example. Yet all of these movies opened much bigger than Observe and Report’s disappointing 4th place and 11 million. What’s the difference between those movies and this one? Those ones seemed original and fresh, while this one seems (fairly or not) like an imitation of Mall Cop. It’s the movie, not the actor.
dusen: I respect your thoughts. The problem is that there are many scientific studies which have proved that the presence of “stars” has either no impact or a NEGATIVE impact on box office $$. Here are a couple of those studies:
(See bottom of page 77:)
http://www.uni-weimar.de/medien/marketing/l/filebrowser/files/Hennig-Thurau_Houston_Walsh_RMS_2007.pdf
(From a Forbes Magazine piece:)
http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/forbes-superstar-flops.html
Nathan: You’re exactly right. Thank you.
dusen (Part 2): Here’s a different example. You say a “star” can help even a “bad movie” do better during its opening weekend. Well, is Vin Diesel a star? Based on FF, you’d think so. And yet his “Find Me Guilty” made 1 million TOTAL. So where’s all the additional millions that this movie made as a result of its star?
S. Ravid, Professor of Finance at Rutgers, has studied movie results for nine years and concluded: “Star participation has no statistical correlation with the success of a movie, no matter how you define ‘a star’ or how you define ‘success.’”
Not surprised by Observe and Report’s gross and cinema score, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought Rogen did a great job as Ronnie. Plus the movie was darkly hilarious. Pretty much 90% of America didn’t get it, or are just not that into dark comedies or really offensive jokes. I am though, and proud of it. So long as it’s funny. By the way I based the 90% stat on absolutely nothing. But it’s gotta be in the ballpark, right? Anyway with a bunch of shitty studio movies being released lately, it’s nice to see one movie doing something different. Kudos Jody Hill & Co!