Miley Cyrus scores big for Disney, “The Eye” blinks, “Juno” passes the $100 mil mark

By Jeffrey Jolson

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 2/3/08 — Hannah Montana: Miley Cyrus The Best of Both Worlds Tour” concert film sold out just like the tween sensation did during the real tour, this time setting attendance records for a 3-D film and concert film with a $29 million opening weekend.

With a weekend gross of $29 million for the Disney limited release film it easily poked past Jessica Alba’s horror story “The Eye” which had $13 million on Super Bowl weekend, when male audiences are down anyway. However, lot of Dads had to take their daughters to the Hannah flick as the phenomenon transferred to the big screen.

“Hannah” danced its way to the highest gross of any film on a Super Bowl weekend, beating record holder “Titanic,” the highest opening ever for a film playing on less than a 1000 screens including record-holder “Borat,” and of course the most ever for a 3-D film playing on 683 screens, close to the sum total of theatres with the special 3-D equipment needed. It could not even play on Imax screens as they aren’t equipped.

Former model Katherine Heigl is keeping audiences in stitches as a romantic comedy leading lady for the third straight week of solid grosses for “27 Dresses,” which made $8.4 million over the weekend and coming in third place and taking in $57 million in all.

“Juno,” the little film everyone loves to love, passed the holy $100 million mark this past week, coming in fourth with a $7.4M weekend bringing its total gross to $106M. That’s the highest of all of the Best picture Oscar nominees – which is makes a strong contender even though all the guild and critics awards have been split by “No Country for Old Men” and “There Will Be Blood.”

Speaking of “Blood,” the stunning yet bleak oil man saga starring Daniel Day-Lewis had its strongest weekend yet at the box office, entering the Top 10 for the first time (at No. 10) drilling up a bonanza of $4.8 million.

“300” spoof “Meet the Spartans” lost the weekend battle after a surprise first weekend victory at No.1. It slipped to No. 5 with an estimated gross of $7.1 million and bringing its war chest to $28 million.

Sylvester Stallon’s “Rambo” redux showed a little muscle to punch up $7 million over the weekend. Rounding out the Top 10 were “The Bucket List” with $6.8M, Untraceable with $5.4M and “Cloverfield” with $4.9M.

Two new films did not crack the Top 10. Eva Longoria Parker starrer “Over Her Dead Body” grossed $4.6 million and nature TV show spoof “Strange Wilderness” made $3 million.