Update: Looks like I was way off on Hannah Montana. Estimates point to almost $30-fucking-million opening weekend. I was a lot closer on The Eye, which has an estimatd $13mil.

I was actually floored when I saw the Friday box office estimates. Coming completely out of nowhere, the concert movie Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds took in an estimated $8.6million on Friday, which puts the whole weekend at around $20million (and that’s accounting for Super Bowl fallout).

The surprise (for me at least) is that it beat out Jessica Alba-starrer The Eye, which took in a pathetic (by ANY standards) $4.9mil on Friday (for a weekend estimate of $11mil). For a movie, especially a concert movie, that has had little to no mainstream media advertising (I didn’t know about this movie until 5 days ago… I haven’t seen any commercials, posters, billboards, ANYTHING) to beat out a Jessica Alba movie, regardless of how good it is, by almost twice as much earnings is astounding.

Check this out, I’m going to take this level of astonishment one level higher… you ready? Hannah Montana made twice as much on Friday even though it only released in ONE-FOURTH as many theatres as The Eye! That’s right, it made 6 times as much money per theatre! If that ain’t a bitch slap to Jessica Alba’s face, I don’t know what is.

A peak over at RottenTomatoes.com shows that… *gasp!* … Hannah Montana might even be a better movie than The Eye (87% vs. 26% freshness rating, respectively)!

Maybe this will be the wake up call that Jessica Alba sorely needs. She’s been harping on and on about being taken serious, about wanting to be a better actress, and yet she keeps taking shit roles. I honestly can’t say if she’s a good actress or not because she’s yet to come through. I saw glimpses of talent in some of her unknown movies, but those were done years ago. Like Ari Gold told her in Entourage, “Let’s get you out of those leotards.”

Posted on February 3rd, 2008 by Enrique
Filed under: Box Office, Bad Movies, Opinion