Miley high
Hannah Montana cannot be stopped. The teen sensation’s concert film easily took the top spot at the box office with $31 million, more than double what its closest competitor, The Eye, pulled in. Of course, jacked up ticket prices and drummed-up demand due to a supposed one-week airing didn’t hurt any.
The up side
On her way to the top spot, Hannah collected a couple of records. Among them: biggest Super Bowl weekend opening (besting 2006’s When a Stranger Calls) and fewest theaters for a No. 1 movie (breaking the record held by Borat, which opened in 837 locations compared with Hannah’s 683). That’s doing more with less.
Bomb Squad
It’s a tough call between Over Her Dead Body (No. 11 with $4 mil.) and Strange Wilderness (No. 12 with $3 mil.) for the title of the weekend’s biggest bomb. We’ll give the edge to Body, whose per-screen average was about 18 percent lower than Wilderness. But both are deserving candidates.
Swami Sez
Never underestimate the tween
Prediction: The Eye wins the weekend at $14.5 million.
Result: The total was pretty close to the actual $12.4 million, but The Eye got trampled by Hannah Montana.
Prediction: Hannah Montana … captures the highest per-screen average of any new release this weekend.
Result: This was an easy one — no one came withing $40K of Hannah’s $45,560 average.
Don’t be fooled
According to most reviews, Fool’s Gold is a dud. But often that won’t stand in the way of a big opening — not when Warner Bros. has blanketed the airwaves with ads and the film’s pair of photogenic stars has appeared on plenty of magazine covers.
Prediction: Fool’s Gold earns $23 million and the top spot.
Whither ‘Hannah’?
So what to expect from previous champ Hannah Montana? If Disney is serious this time about just one more week of screenings (we’ll see about that), then surely demand will be high for another week.
Prediction: Hannah Montana enjoys another strong week with a No. 2 finish and another $21 million.
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