Did ‘Montana’ dupe parents?

The Hannah Montana 3D movie could be considered marketing mastery or a sneaky trick. Hannah Montana Release: Savvy or Sneaky? No Big Surprise When Disney Extends ‘Hannah Montana’ Limited Release.

Hurry, hurry, hurry! The movie event of the year! One week only! It’s one of the oldest tricks in the marketing book — the limited-time offer — and The Walt Disney Co. worked it to perfection last weekend when tweens spent $31.3 million to see the studio’s latest hit, “Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert.”

But now that the 3-D film’s run has been extended, were parents duped into rushing their kids to the theater? Or was it just another case of Disney’s marketing mastery?

Dan Smith, marketing professor at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, called the strategy “a legitimate tool.”

“When you create that kind of buzz and combine it with scarcity, you’re going to drive up demand,” Smith said. “The model strikes me as not much different from a rock concert.”

As most media companies are ceding control of when and where consumers can watch shows or listen to music, Disney is managing its content as tightly as ever. And based on the movie’s results — the “Hannah Montana” film set a record for any movie opening on a Super Bowl weekend — people are falling over themselves to keep Disney’s schedule.

“When you have a successful franchise, setting the time table and controlling the distribution just develops an appetite for more,” said Michael Kupinski, media analyst and head of research at Noble Financial Group. “No one is as good at this as Disney.”

The company rode the strength of its “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “High School Musical” and “Hannah Montana” to a 9 percent increase in fourth-quarter revenue and better-than-expected earnings. Fees at its ESPN sports networks and higher visitors to Disney theme parks also boosted earnings. Disney shares rose $1.43, or 5 percent, to $31.50 Wednesday.

Robert Iger, Disney’s president and chief executive, credited the company’s focus on developing brands and producing content across its various media and theme park properties.

“Five years ago we could count upon only two major franchises, and today we have 10 vibrant, creative properties,” Iger said in a conference call with Wall Street analysts.

“Hannah Montana” fits the mold perfectly. It started as a TV show on the Disney Channel and the concert tour generated $36 million in ticket revenue last year. The movie has already grossed more than five times the $7 million the company said it cost to make.

Disney plans to produce a third season of the TV show and may produce a feature film based on the show.

The company says it planned all along for a one-week run for the “Hannah Montana” film, envisioning it as an extension of the wildly popular concert tour that played to sold-out arenas across the country last year.

Disney has also used limited-time offers to sell anniversary or special versions of its iconic animated movies, from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” to “Pinocchio,” and has changed the terms to meet demand.

The studio extended the “Hannah Montana” run on Saturday, giving theater operators the option to show the film for as long as they like. Disney said it responded to “astounding” demand on the opening weekend.

But the company also knew long ago the movie would be a smashing success.

Advance ticket sales were higher than for any movie that was not a sequel, and the fifth-highest ever, according to online ticket seller Fandango. In fact, it has been the top-selling movie at the service since the tickets went on sale Dec. 1.

Fandango alone sold more than $9 million in advance tickets for the weekend shows of “Hannah Montana,” nearly a third of the total box office. Disney says it told theater operators well in advance the company would extend the run if demand was high.

The company says it wasn’t trying to manufacture scarcity to drum up demand.

“We were trying to make it like an event, like a concert,” said Mark Zoradi, president of Walt Disney Studios, Motion Picture Group.

“If we were trying to make it scarce we would have had a more limited release,” he said.

The movie ran on all of the country’s 683 public screens equipped to handle 3D films, and averaged $45,534 per screen over the weekend. A typical blockbuster opens in 3,000 theaters and averages about $7,000 at each, according to industry statistics.

Most movies are released as broadly as possible, Smith said. “You want a large number of people to see it quickly just in case it doesn’t fly,” he said.

A trend that has alarmed studios is huge opening weekends that fade quickly after a blast of negative word of mouth. That makes the first weekend even more important, Smith said.

“By limiting the run, you can eliminate the effects of bad press by forcing anyone who’s interested to see the movie right away,” he said.

Apparently Disney won’t need to worry about an abrupt falloff in ticket sales. “Hannah Montana” received an “A” grade from moviegoers polled by CinemaScore, and Fandango said advance sales remain strong for the movie into next week. ~ By Jeremy Herron, AP Business Writer

Most powerful celeb couples

Celebs: Brad Pitt | Angelina Jolie | Cameron Diaz | Justin Timberlake | Jessica Biel | Nicole Kidman | Kate Moss |

For a culture of star gazers, the only thing more intriguing than Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie is the star couple “Brangelina.”

The public need only flip open a tabloid or surf the blogs for the up-to-the-minute happenings of the duo, better known by their one-word media moniker. That widespread fascination with the minutia of their lives earned the couple a spot atop Forbes’ first-ever list of Hollywood’s Most Influential Couples, a look at which celebrity pairings have the greatest impact on popular culture.

To determine which couples landed on the list, we looked at both Web presence and press clippings for more than 50 A-list couples — some still together, some not — over the course of the last year. Then, with a whittled-down list, we reached out to both Encino, Calif.-based E-Poll Market Research’s E-Score Celebrity for appeal data, and celebrity weeklies — People, Life & Style and In Touch — for a tabloid cover count.

Pitt and Jolie score high across the board, thanks to their humanitarian lifestyle, ever-expanding brood, and general likeability as a couple. And according to People magazine Deputy Managing Editor Peter Castro, the duo, like so many star couplings, are far more appealing as an entity than they are on their own.

“[Pitt] is pretty to look at, and he’s a fabulous actor, but he’s not the most scintillating person on his own,” Castro says. “But hook him up with, arguably, the world’s most beautiful woman, and then you have the makings of a really interesting tableau.”

But while the public’s access to couples like Pitt and Jolie has grown, thanks to the proliferation of celebrity weeklies and blogs, the fascination with Hollywood romance is nothing new. In fact, it was once the workings of the movie studios to publicize — if not manufacture — such scandal-prone courtships.

The relationships offer a real-life soap opera with daily, if not hourly, twists for the public to feast on. And it’s that drama that keeps the public interested, explains Castro, who likens the ups and downs of A-list couplings to a modern-day version of the 1980s TV drama “Dynasty.”

Consider supermodel Kate Moss’s on-again, off-again romance with rocker Pete Doherty. Though the second-place couple finally called in quits in July 2007, the duo was long known for serving up dish-worthy news. Whether it was their celebrity looks, rocky relationship, or hard-partying ways, they quickly became a tabloid staple.

What’s more, the particulars of a star’s relationship give the public a window into that celebrity’s life, adds Jill Stempel, the New York bureau chief of photo agency World Entertainment News Network.

For Nicole Kidman, that window has served up a host of highs and lows in recent months. Thanks to the buzz surrounding her country-singer hubby Keith Urban’s stint in rehab and her “is she or isn’t she” pregnancy (for the record, she is), the pair ranked third on the list.

But it isn’t simply the details of getting — and staying — together that garner big buzz. In fact, many times it’s the breakup that sends the tabloids swooning.

Case in point: longtime lovers Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake, who famously split in early 2007. The end for the ninth-place couple didn’t happen happily or quickly: Upon seeing her ex flirting with “Seventh Heaven” star (and Timberlake’s current squeeze) Jessica Biel at a Golden Globes party shortly after their split, Diaz reportedly snapped at both stars, garnering plenty of media mentions in the process.

Embarrassing? Sure. But Diaz’s visible vulnerability had an upside: It made the Hollywood beauty more real to her fan base. The way Castro sees it, the emotions she exhibited were those the average person can relate to.

But there’s another reason for the public’s fascination: “Let’s face it, these are fabulously wealthy, gorgeous people, and I think there is a certain amount of, ‘Oh goody, something bad is happening to them,’” he says of the perverse delight the public takes.

According to E-Poll President and Chief Executive Gerry Philpott, it comes down to this: Marital bliss alone doesn’t sell tabloids. Rather, a couple has to offer constant relationship developments (think: getting together, getting pregnant, or getting divorced) to maintain the public’s interest.

“If a couple is just happily married, it gets boring for the average person,” he says. “It’s probably wonderful for the couple, but it’s not too exciting for the press or [its] readers.”

Stallone back in action with 2-film deal

Boxoffice comeback champ Sylvester Stallone has inked a lucrative deal to direct and star in two action films with “Rambo” producers Danny Dimbort,

Several scripts are being considered for follow-ups to his surprise hit sequels to “First Blood” and “Rocky.” With Nu Image/Millennium’s new Writers Guild of America interim deal speeding up the process, the first script is expected to be ready by the fall, with production set to begin shortly thereafter.

“The past year and a half of working with Avi, his partners Danny and Trevor and his film family has been nothing but a high point for me and my career and an extremely rewarding experience,” Stallone said. “Avi is a real gentleman and a man of his word.”

Stallone will produce the films with Kevin King-Templeton and Lerner. Dimbort, Short and Boaz Davidson will serve as executive producers.

It’s a deal few would have expected just a few years ago, when Stallone followed up his role in “Spy Kids 3D: Game Over” with a failed network boxing reality TV series, “The Contender.” But in 2006, Stallone wrote, directed and starred in “Rocky Balboa,” the sixth “Rocky” film, 16 years after the previous sequel in the franchise. The MGM release grossed $70 million on an estimated $24 million budget.

The second part of Stallone’s one-two punch came with the current release “Rambo,” which he also stars in, wrote and directed. The film, distributed by Lionsgate, made $18.2 million in its opening weekend and earned an estimated $25 million in its first 10 days of release.

Links:

• Sylvester Stallone Website:  http://www.westlord.com/sylvesterstallone/
• Rambo 4 Trailers and Reviews: http://www.boxist.com/2008/01/10/rambo-2008-film-trailer-review-and-  wallpapers/

5 little-known Jessica Alba facts

Find out what you may not know about Jessica Alba, who plays a blind musician in “The Eye.”

FACT ONE: Jessica Learned From the Very Best
Jessica Alba took her first acting class at the age of twelve, and within a year she had her first movie role in Camp Nowhere. After graduating from high school at 16, she studied acting at the Atlantic Theater Company under the Oscar-nominated husband-and-wife team of William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman.
 
FACT TWO: She’s Willing to Lend a Hand (or Shoe)
Jessica is currently appearing in a new advertising campaign for the Good Cents Initiative to raise money to provides AIDS medication for children in Africa and India. She also supports Soles4Souls, a relief organization that has collected over two million pairs of shoes for disaster victims across the globe.
 
FACT THREE: Change Is Coming for Jess and Cash
In December Jessica officially announced that she is expecting her first child with fiancé Cash Warren in the late spring/early summer. They met on the set of Fantastic Four, where he was working as the director’s assistant. She told OK Magazine that pregnancy has made her more relaxed, but, “I wake up to hiccups every single morning. Never had hiccups before.”
 
FACT FOUR: She’s Bringing the “Love” to the NHL
Next up for Jessica is The Love Guru, written by and starring Mike Myers. She plays the owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team who seeks the help of Pitka, a spiritual self-help guide, to mend the marriage of her star player and his wife. It also stars Ben Kingsley, Meagan Good and Justin Timberlake.
 
FACT FIVE: All Those in Favor Say “Eye”
Following in the footsteps of Naomi Watts and Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jessica plays the lead in a remake of a successful Asian horror movie. She took six months of violin lessons for the role of a blind musician who gains supernatural visions after a corneal transplant. Scroll down to check out the theatrical trailer.

Links:

• Jessica Alba Website: http://www.westlord.com/jessica-alba/
• Jessica Alba Desktop Wallpapers: http://www.snoron.com/jessica-alba/
• Jessica Alba and her Ethnicity: http://www.boxist.com/2007/12/10/jessica-alba-and-her-ethnicity/
• The Eye Film Wallpapers and Reviews: http://www.snoron.com/movies-wallpapers/the-eye/
• Jessica Alba and her Personal Life: http://www.boxist.com/2007/12/04/jessica-alba-and-her-personal-life/

Top 99 Most Desirable Women of 2008

AskMen.com’s Top 99 Most Desirable Women is an annual list compiled by AskMen.com readers and staff, ranking the famous females deemed to be the year’s most alluring.

In casting their votes, readers are asked to look beyond sex appeal and beauty to pick women who have the characteristics they value in a potential companion, like intelligence, humor, charisma, and ambition.

The result is an annual list that acts as the definitive gauge for identifying what modern men desire most in their female companions.

This year, over 5 million votes were cast as AskMen.com readers identified the females from the worlds of music, fashion, sports, and entertainment who they felt best represented their ideal woman.

Who has joined the exclusive ranks of previous winners Laetitia Casta, Charlize Theron, Monica Bellucci, Adriana Lima, Jessica Alba, and Beyonce Knowles in being named 2008’s No. 1? Find out by making your way up through the list –

Here’s an exclusive sneak peak of some of the women voted onto the Top 99 list in 2008:

The Honorees:

Blake Lively 
Voted as the No. 99 Most Desirable Woman of 2008
2008 marks Blake Lively’s debut on the AskMen.com Top 99 list. Although she’s been acting for years in films like “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” (2005) and “Accepted” (2006), the 20-year- old California native had a breakout year in 2007 with her starring role as Serena van der Woodsen on the hit teen TV series “Gossip Girl.”

Lindsay Lohan – View her Desktop Wallpapers:
Voted as the No. 95 Most Desirable Woman of 2008
Lindsay Lohan might have done everything except star in a hit movie this year. Plummeting 45 positions to finish at No. 95, Lindsay proved to be perfect tabloid fodder in 2007 with her highly publicized antics, which included a bizarre car crash, an arrest, and a subsequent stint in rehab.

Jessica Simpson – View her Desktop Wallpapers:
Voted as the No. 47 Most Desirable Woman of 2008
Jessica Simpson is the quintessential all-American girl, and in 2007 (after calling it quits with crooner John Mayer) she made the ultimate patriotic move to date All-American quarterback Tony Romo. After Dallas’ suspiring NFC divisional playoff loss to the New York Giants, Cowboy fans tagged her with the nickname Yoko Romo. Aside from breaking her nose on the set of her upcoming 2008 film “Major Movie Star,” Jessica announced that she will be returning to her Texas roots and releasing a country album in the coming year.

Eva Longoria – View her Desktop Wallpapers:
Voted as the No. 29 Most Desirable Woman of 2008
Eva Longoria is the reason why men don’t complain about “Desperate Housewives.” Eva sizzled as Gabrielle all year and still found time to make a cameo in “The Heartbreak Kid,” model for Bebe Sport and host the 2007 NCLR ALMA Awards. In 2008, she’ll appear in “Lower Learning,” “Over Her Dead Body,” “Foodfight!,” and “Deep in the Heart of Texas.” When told her she made AskMen.com’s list again, she said: “[It's] probably … because I married Tony Parker. So people think, ‘Cool! Sports guy!’ That is really flattering and fun. … It’s better than the alternate lists — the not-so-hot of the year!”

Kim Kardashian -
Voted as the No. 28 Most Desirable Woman of 2008
Hollywood socialite Kim Kardashian is one busy lady: She owns her very own high-end clothing boutique, stars in a reality TV show, “Keeping Up With The Kardashians,” and still finds the time to cameo in the occasional homemade porn video. But while Kim Kardashian might have a talent for batting those eyelashes at the camera, it’s her curvaceous Jessica Rabbit-like physique that drives the boys crazy.

Carrie Underwood – View her Desktop Wallpapers:
Voted as the No. 23 Most Desirable Woman of 2008
Quite possibly the most successful American Idol winner ever, Carrie Underwood was nominated for five Academy of Country Music awards in 2007 and for the “Best New Artist” Grammy — the first time an Idol winner has been nominated in that category. She also became only the 11th country music star ever to perform on “SNL.” Carrie released her second sophomore studio album, Carnival Ride, in ‘07, and continues to dominate airwaves on radio stations from coast to coast.

Halle Berry – View her Desktop Wallpapers:
Voted as the No. 21 Most Desirable Woman of 2008
2007 proved to be a busy year for this Academy Award-winning actress, model and mother-to-be; after starring in two flicks, “Perfect Stranger” and “Things We Lost in the Fire,” Halle received a coveted star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 2008 will be another busy year for Halle Berry, as she already has three films lined up.

Beyonce Knowles – View her Desktop Wallpapers:
Voted as the No. 14 Most Desirable Woman of 2008
Voted as the most Desirable Woman of 2007, Beyonce’s physical and musical attributes have already translated into a stellar career as an award-winning singer and actress. She had several hit songs in 2007, including “Beautiful Liar,” and fans everywhere now wait with bated breath for Beyonce’s third solo album, due out in 2008.

Megan Fox – View her Desktop Wallpapers:
Voted as the No. 12 Most Desirable Woman of 2008
This foxy Fox is known for having starring roles in a number of hit movies and television shows, including “Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen” (2004), the sitcom “Hope & Faith,” and her starring role in 2007’s box-office smash hit “Transformers.” Though her resume is short, there is no denying Megan Fox’s budding talent … and her incredible good looks.

Jessica Alba – View her Desktop Wallpapers:
Voted as the No. 5 Most Desirable Woman of 2008
Who doesn’t love a beautiful woman with a great sense of humor? Jessica Alba showed us her funny side in “Good Luck Chuck,” and her gorgeous side everywhere else she appeared. In 2007, she also reprised her role as Susan Storm in “Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer,” and can next be seen starring in “The Eye,” “The Love Guru,” and 2009’s “Sin City 2.” Voted No. 1 of 2006, Jessica Alba is a perennial favorite among voters.

Katherine Heigl – View her Desktop Wallpapers:
AskMen.com’s No. 1 Most Desirable Woman of 2008
Katherine Heigl has had an outstanding year. Her role on “Grey’s Anatomy” garnered her an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. She also starred in the box-office hit “Knocked Up,” was interviewed by journalist Barbara Walters as one of her “10 Most Fascinating People of 2007,” and married singer Josh Kelley. A former model, Katherine Heigl is beautiful, well-spoken, humorous, talented … the list goes on. No one belongs at the top of 2008’s Top 99 more than Katherine Heigl.

Where did your favorite place? Check out AskMen.com for the complete list of the Top 99 Most Desirable Women of 2008.