Lou Lumenick says the film is playing at only 684 theaters "for a limited one-week run" -- and tickets are going for at least $15 a pop instead of the usual cheaper whatever. So they're treating this like a real concert, I guess. And Dave Poland says the film was easily #1 yesterday -- making almost twice what the #2 film did -- and Jeffrey Wells says the film may do even better over the weekend than people are predicting because, well, some girls DID stay in school yesterday.

What do I care? Well, this looks to be the first time since Tyler Perry's Diary of a Mad Black Woman that a film opened at #1 in "North America" without even being RELEASED in Vancouver. (If memory serves, Diary wasn't released anywhere in Canada until a couple weeks after its American debut, but Hannah Montana appears to be playing in Toronto right now, at least.) It would seem that there not only isn't much of a market here for films with a narrowly African-American appeal, but there also isn't much of a market here for films starring the daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus. Make whatever you will of that.

But what concerns me even more is the question of 3-D theatres. I gather that this film is being shown in 3-D, and I have heard that other Disney films -- such as last year's Meet the Robinsons and next year's Toy Story re-issue -- either have been or will be shown in digital 3-D at specially equipped theatres. But unless I've missed something, I don't believe ANY theatres in the Vancouver area are equipped to show those films, and I wonder if the absence of Hannah Montana screenings here is related to that. And I would very, very much NOT want to miss out on the Toy Story re-issue.

Keeping in mind the caveats about unusually inflated ticket prices...

This film grossed $29 million this weekend, the highest ever for a Super Bowl weekend, despite playing in only 683 theatres. The last time a movie was #1 on less than 700 screens was way, way back in 1988, when Gorillas of the Mist rose to #1 in its second weekend after expanding to 558 theatres (the week before, it had played in only 15). And I haven't bothered to check to see when the last time was that a movie OPENED at #1 on so few screens.

And BTW, even if every single movie ticket WASN'T priced 50% higher than usual -- indeed, if every ticket to Hannah Montana this weekend had had its price slashed in half -- this movie still would have been #1 for the weekend, since the #2 film, The Eye, made $13 million this weekend.

These numbers are unbelievable. I don't expect U23D to come anywhere close, but maybe it, too, will do surprisingly well. Maybe we're about to see a lot of concert movies on big screens, with special formats (IMAX) or gimmicks (3D) drawing people in.

I've noticed that a few local theaters have started to televise operas on the weekend. Must be lucrative.

Disney banks on 'Hannah' concert
Disney reported Sunday that the film grossed $29 million, based on Friday and Saturday grosses plus Sunday estimates. When actual figures came in Monday, however, the movie had grossed $31.1 million, fueled by tween girls. That's the best opening ever for a film playing on fewer than 1,000 screens.
Variety, February 4

Hannah Montana
I sent the email to my friend Rod Dreher and asked his thoughts. He reminded me that a few years back there had been a hubbub about performers lip-synching and using recorded music in concert. The surprising thing was that audiences didn't much care. In fact, they seemed to appreciate the performance matching their memory in every tiny detail (I guess like little kids who demand that the fairy tale be recited in exactly the same words every time). Rod pointed out that this changes the concept of a "concert" from one in which the point is hearing a true live performance, to one in which the point is being in the same room as a celebrity.
That jogged my memory of a speech by John Updike a couple of years ago, in which he was complaining that writers aren't much esteemed for their writing any more; the Internet has made writing cheap. He predicted that what will be valued is not the writer's craft but his personal presence, the one thing the Internet can't provide. But the Hannah-Miley phenomenon means you don't even have to have the celebrity present; it’s thrilling just to be in the presence of a virtual celebrity event. I asked Megan if that seemed true last night, and she replied:
"Yes, yes. And, to make it even stranger, what Hannah Montana is selling is that she's *not* a celebrity. Miley Cyrus is the brown-haired girl next door, and any ordinary person could turn out to be Hannah Montana, the sequined pop star. So by participating in the concert you can imagine that you are Hannah Montana too. It's genius marketing. Frighteningly genius." . . .
Frederica Mathewes-Green, First Things, February 5

I, um, don't know what to say.