Hannah Montana Rules The World

Apparently, Hannah Montana is popular. I wouldn't know, as I've never seen her show, because I'm 34 and a) it has no appeal to me, and b) it's illegal for me to even look at Miley Cyrus. But my abstinence from the whole Hannah Montana phenomena didn't stop everyone else from making her Best of Both Worlds concert movie from becoming a record-setting box office smash.

The movie won the weekend's box office with a $31 million take. It became the biggest opener on a Super Bowl weekend. On 683 screens, it opened at #1 on the fewest screens ever. At $45 thousand per screen, it set a record for per screen average for a wide release movie. And, as it's a 3-D movie, it had the 2nd largest opening for a 3-D movie ever (Spy Kids 3 is #1) and is already the 8th highest-grossing 3-D movie ever.

It's no surprise this movie is a hit, as it's a movified version of her "Best of Both Worlds" tour, which sold out every show and tickets drew astronomical scalper prices. Who wouldn't pay $10 to see something they didn't get a chance to pay $100 to see?

Unfortunately, this movie, which could dominate the upcoming weekend's weak openings as well, is short-lived. You've only got until Thursday to see it, as they've chosen to just release it for seven days. So, a movie that could easily make $100 million if they opened it to 2000 screens for a month is happy just making, like, $40 million in seven days.

I appreciate the long-time Disney strategy of "catch it before it's gone!", but, this is Hollywood. Isn't the object to make as much money as possible?

Oh well. I'm sure Disney is happy to make that much money on this deal, seeing as Miley Cyrus is about two years away from pulling a Lizzie McGuire, and forcing them to find some other 13 year-old girl to be the Next Big Thing.