“Hannah” added an extra dimension to the domestic box office this weekend. With an estimated $29 million opening from just 683 venues, Disney’s “Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert” proved to be every bit the magnificent tweens magnet that eager 3-D exhibitors had anticipated.
“Hannah” follows closely on the heel of a live tour by 15-year-old actress and singer Cyrus, star of the popular Disney Channel show “Hannah Montana.” The 3-D concert film is set to run for just two weeks at this point, though exhibitors can request longer runs.
Its first weekend featured widespread sellouts and grosses that amounted to an eye-popping $42,460 per screen, with the film playing only in digital 3-D auditoriums.
“We were very lucky,” Disney distribution president Chuck Viane said. “We had a very charismatic young lady who was fabulous (in) helping push the movie.”
The “Hannah” opening was the best ever for Super Bowl weekend, outpacing 2006’s $21.6 million performance by Sony’s “When a Stranger Calls,” Nielsen EDI said.
Industrywide, the weekend’s $126 million in collective box office represented a 37% improvement over the same frame a year earlier, EDI said. That made for the seventh consecutive year-over-year weekend uptick.
Last weekend’s No. 1, Fox’s spoof “Meet the Spartans,” dropped 61% in its sophomore session to $7.1 million, landing in fifth place with a cumulative box office of $28.3 million.
