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If you ask me, everybody in this theater is a giant sucker! Especially you!

Kim Hollis: It's been 14 months since High School Musical 2 debuted on the Disney Channel. It has been viewed by an estimated 191 million people worldwide. Fewer than seven million people went to see High School Musical 3 in a North American theater this weekend. Do you believe the discrepancy is in having to pay for the film, or do you think if Disney had this to do over again, High School Musical 2 would have been the first movie they put in theaters?

Tim Briody: I know it's already profitable since all the kids are still working for cheap (for now). But for failing to turn the vast majority of HSM and HSM2 viewers into paying customers for HSM3, utterly I think it's a disappointment. In hindsight now, HSM2 would have been the film to put into theaters. I could have seen a considerably higher opening for that than what HSM3 pulled in.

Brandon Scott: I guess I am scratching my head at these comments. Admittedly, even following the film industry as closely as I think I do, my awareness of the High School Musical pics is not high. I have never seen any of them nor will I. But to call $42 million a low opening figure seems absurd to me. Can't wait until Speidi makes a movie now. What kind of money would that pull? I am appalled. Perhaps I shouldn't be, but I truly am. (Note: I hope this isn't an angry hangover from seeing the Chargers attempt to play defense this week, 'cause it could be.)

Scott Lumley: You cannot possibly be whining about the Chargers. You can't. I'm a Lions fan so... just don't go there. In regards to the film, did you really expect all 191 million fans to go see the movie on opening weekend? I think that indicates tremendous legs, not a monster opening... (And yet here we are looking at a $42 million opening, so go figure.)





Sean Collier: I'll have no bellyaching from either of you. Your teams are supposed to be bad - my Steelers lost due to long snapping trouble, for god's sake. Here's why the High School Musical performance can still be considered low. Disney just managed to open WALL-E to $63 million. Aside from not being part of a proven franchise, WALL-E was a hard sell, despite its brilliance. Yet, due to faith in Pixar and Disney's marketing, they still turned $63 million. High School Musical, a franchise moving to the big screen with quite literally a hundred million fans, made $20 million less than WALL-E. I understand that you're not too familiar with the product, Brandon, but believe me - this is a huge, rabid, obsessed fanbase. A lot of them were missing at the theater this weekend. Can't say I can figure out why.

David Mumpower: Let's scale this back a bit to demonstrate why there were even loftier expectations for the third High School Musical release. That 17 million number that was mentioned in the last reply was the total number of viewers for the title's Friday debut on Disney. If those same people showed up in theaters this past Friday, that would have been a $100 million box office day, even if we adjust down 20% to reflect children's ticket pricing impact. $42 million for the entire weekend is of course a massive accomplishment for such an inexpensive film, but the overwhelming majority of High School Musical 2 premiere viewers did not show up at theaters this weekend. Well over half of them were left behind for some reason. This is also reflected in the iTunes sales chart for the music. Upon the debut of the High School Musical 2 songs, every one of them was ranked in the top 100 with seven in the top 30 for the weekend. As I type this, "only" four are in the top 30, "only" nine are in the top 100 and nothing is higher than #15. There is some slippage in the product, meaning that the last film probably was the one to launch into theaters. It's a splitting of hairs for one of the most lucrative products of the 2000s, though.

Kim Hollis: I am definitely in agreement that High School Musical 2 would have had a stronger performance in theaters and would have blown people away with its opening. I think what we're seeing here is the fact that a lot of kids who were big fans of the first two movies simply outgrew the product before HSM3 hit theaters. Fads fade so quickly in the world of teenagers, and once they hit a certain age, it's not "cool" (or whatever word they use these days) to like something like High School Musical. I think this is especially true when you realize that a lot of the movie's fanbase is actually five- to 11-years-old rather than the teenagers I'm sure Disney is hoping to target. An older teen is going to eschew the fad if a younger brother or sister is hugely into it. I know I sure did when New Kids on the Block were all the rage...a long time ago. That doesn't mean they didn't have a massive, dorky audience.

Marty Doskins: I think Kim hit it right on the head. If this movie/series had been more appealing to the teenage crowd, it would've probably brought in even more money since they're the ones that spend the cash. My 13-year-old daughter has no interest in this whatsoever and she said that neither do her friends. Even though it's high school, they just don't care. I wonder if they're too close to the age of the characters and are separating reality from the fantasy version of high school they're being shown on the screen. Maybe if we had a disgruntled cafeteria worker chasing the kids around the school with the "spatula of death" there would've been more interest from the older kids.

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