Will Miley Cyrus Be the Next Jonas Brothers (in a Bad Way)?
Sam Emerson/Disney Enterprises
If you're trying to sell out arenas, you want, perhaps even deeply desire, to be compared to the Jonas Brothers.
But if you're trying to sell out multiplexes, well...
Six weeks after the Jonases' concert movie famously underwhelmed, Miley Cyrus' Hannah Montana: The Movie hits theaters Friday, and the question arises: Will the tween franchise be the next, if you'll pardon the box-office expression, Jonas Brothers?
Probably not. Which is a good thing. For Cyrus.
"For Miley Cyrus, this movie is perfect," says Ashley Dos Santos, the tween social-marketing expert for Crosby~Volmer International Communications, a public-relations firm. "It's coming out at the perfect time."
In terms of the box-office expectations game, it's true: Cyrus and her alter ego are catching the breaks.
Bitten by the Jonas Brothers, whose 3D Concert Experience film inspired opening-weekend talk of $30 million, but delivered only $12 million, box-office forecasters are handling Hannah Montana more cautiously.
Holdover Fast & Furious, not Cyrus' movie, for one thing, is expected to finish the weekend race at No. 1, with a gross in the upper $20 millions. Hannah Montana is forecast by Exhibitor Relations' Jeff Bock to debut with about $18million to $20 million—$25 million, at best.
Neither projection would see the film match what the Jonases were supposed to do, nor what 2008's Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour did, which was basically lead everybody to believe that tween concert movies that charge 3-D prices are supposed to open with $30 million. (See: The Jonas Brothers not catch a break.)
On the other hand, the projections would put the new Hannah Montana movie in a league where, per Box Office Mojo's Brandon Gray, it belongs: "I think The Lizzie McGuire Movie is a better comparison."
Though now buried in the modern Disney Channel age of The Suite Life of Hannah School Musical, in 2003, the Hilary Duff TV-turned-movie comedy was a box-office hit, debuting with $17.4 million.
If it doesn't sound cool to be called the next Lizzie McGuire, then it should look bankable. Besides, according to Dos Santos, Cyrus will handle the cool part herself.
"Maybe the Hannah Montana brand is starting to come to a close," Dos Santos says, "but I don't think Miley Cyrus herself has even peaked yet.
"What happened with the Jonas Brothers movie scared studio executives, [but] I think everyone is expecting [her movie] to do very well."
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