Pricey tickets leave bad taste

The Matthew McConaughey-Kate Hudson adventure film "Fool's Gold" took in $21.6 million in ticket sales in it first three days of business. Martin Lawrence's latest, "Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins" grossed $16.2 million over that same time period.

The just-released movies ranked first and second at the U.S. box office over the weekend.

Now I didn't particularly care for either movie. But I am glad to see them top the box-office charts. Maybe that will finally shut up the Disney hype machine ... er, publicity team ... which has been touting the alleged, "unprecedented" success of its "Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert" movie.

That film, which was shot at least in part during an EnergySolutions Arena concert last fall, took in $10.3 million and was No. 3. The concert film has made $53.2 million to date and is quickly moving up the 2008 charts. (It's behind only "Cloverfield" and "27 Dresses" at this point.)

Now I certainly don't begrudge the success of Cyrus, who is the daughter of country star Bill Ray Cyrus and is the star of the Disney Channel's "Hannah Montana" television show.

And, in fact, I would normally be very happy about the fact that a G-rated film did lead the box office for a week.

However, the film's "success" does leave something of a bad taste in my mouth. Theaters are changing anywhere from $15-$18 for tickets to the film, which is showing in Disney Digital 3-D format.

That's at least double the ticket price of most movie tickets. What's worse, it's about double or even triple the cost of normal children's tickets or bargain matinee prices. There are no matinee or children's discounts for this movie. And obviously, its target audience is young girls, or "tweens."

Just imagine if Disney tried to charge that much for one of its regular movie attractions, such as last summer's animated hit "Ratatouille," which was produced by the Pixar animators. Most audiences would probably balk at paying double or triple the ticket price, no matter how good the film is.

Either that, or "Ratatouille" would have had the biggest opening in history. As it was, that film made $206 million during its theatrical run.

• IN ITS DEFENSE ...

At least the ticket price for the Hannah Montana concert film is about half the price of one for an actual concert.

• OOPS!

Disney has done everything it can to promote the squeaky-clean image of television star Cyrus. But apparently she's not perfect.

An online version of the Consumer Reports magazine noted that the 15-year-old pop phenom is shown in the movie riding in the back seat of a vehicle — and she's not wearing a seat belt.

And neither is her father, who should also know better.

The Consumer Reports "safety blog" item chastises both Cyruses, citing alarming statistics from 2006. According to that study, nearly two-thirds of the "tweens" who were killed in vehicular accidents in 2006 were not wearing seat belts or restraints. Billy Ray later said they forgot to buckle up.

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E-mail: jeff@desnews.com