Weekend war in U.S.: "The Eye" vs. "Hannah Montana"

Two films, "The Eye" and "Hannah Montana," vying for first place at the weekend box office in America both have deadly stares at their centers, according to local meida reports Thursday. In the horror movie "The Eye," a blind Jessica Alba receives a corneal transplant enabling her to see the departed. And in "Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour," the lethal glances will come from 10-year-old girls whose parents refuse to fork out as much as 20 dollars for tickets to the 3D music movie.

BEIJING, Jan. 31(Xinhuanet) -- Two films, "The Eye" and "Hannah Montana," vying for first place at the weekend box office in America both have deadly stares at their centers, according to local meida reports Thursday.

In the horror movie "The Eye," a blind Jessica Alba receives a corneal transplant enabling her to see the departed. And in "Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour," the lethal glances will come from 10-year-old girls whose parents refuse to fork out as much as 20 dollars for tickets to the 3D music movie.

That these two films and Eva Longoria Parker's "Over Her Dead Body," which is also opening in wide release Friday, are expected to appeal to female viewers is no coincidence. With many American men ready to pack as much five-layer dip into their coronary arteries as possible on Super Bowl Sunday, movie studios plan to turn the football championship weekend into a mini chick-flick film festival.

"The reason we picked this weekend is for that exact reason," said Steve Rothenberg, the theatrical distribution chief for "The Eye's" Lionsgate Films. "We hope that females will say, 'You guys stay home and eat the chips, but we're going out to see a movie.' "

"From the very beginning, our goal was to create a classy horror thriller, not a movie that relied on gore and exploitative shock," said Don Granger, a producer of "The Eye."

The shock for "Hannah Montana" is different. Rather than charge the usual 8 dollars or so for admission into Disney's concert movie, a number of movie theaters have nearly tripled the tariff to as much as 20, which Los Angeles' the Bridge Cinema De Lux is charging. They are able to extract so much in part because the movie will be in theaters only for a week (although Disney may extend the run by a week if the film opens strongly) and because it's in 3D.

Fandango.com and MovieTickets.com, the top online ticket sellers, said "Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert" accounted for more than three-quarters of their ticket sales as of Wednesday morning.

Fandango.com said "Hannah Montana" was the site's best-selling concert film ever, selling out more than 1,000 showings and accounting for 91 percent of sales as of Wednesday morning.

For those with no pre-pubescent girls around the house, 15-year-old Miley Cyrus is the real-life equivalent of a Wii video game console: There's just not enough of her to go around.

(Agencies)

0 Response to "Weekend war in U.S.: "The Eye" vs. "Hannah Montana""

Free Joomla TemplatesFree Blogger TemplatesFree Website TemplatesFree Wordpress Themes TemplatesFree CSS TemplatesFree Wordpress ThemesFree CSS Templates dreamweaver