Well, my friends, last week I discussed the better-than-expected box office results of Disney's (NYSE: DIS) Hannah Montana: The Movie. The project grossed well over $30 million in its opening weekend and ranked in first place. Looks like the half-life was short on this one.

According to Boxofficemojo, the early estimates for this past weekend place Montana in fourth place with roughly $12 million. This represents a huge dive of 60%. The film does not have any legs, let me tell you. Disney shareholders should be disappointed (I'm one, and I'm very disappointed).

According to The Hollywood Reporter, media conglomerate Disney (NYSE: DIS) intends to keep the song going at the High School Musical workshop. The fourth film in the series will return to the small screen, debuting on the Disney Channel sometime next year. You'll recall that the last film, High School Musical 3: Senior Year, was a big-screen effort. It was released to theaters back in October and went on to gross a little over $90 million at the domestic box office.

I was reading an article from Fortune yesterday about Disney (NYSE: DIS) and Bob Iger. When I got to the end of it, I had the biggest feeling of deja vu that I had ever experienced. Yes, I had heard it all before.

You've heard it all before, too, I'm willing to bet. Here's the basic gist of the piece: Bob Iger knows what he's doing. He's a genius. He's a creative powerhouse, a business wunderkind, a man who has studied the Disney brand, knows it inside and out, and is capable of leveraging that brand over multiple platforms to create immense economic value for shareholders. You know the examples,: you've got your Jonas Brothers, your Miley Cyrus, your Zac Efron and the whole High School Musical gang migrating from Disney Channel to concert stages to DVD releases to the silver Iger was the prescient exec who realized that Pixar should be acquired (take that, Michael Eisner!).

Only problem is, none of this seems to be working. I base this statement on the fact that Disney really hasn't broken out of a really long-term range. I honestly have to wonder if shareholders will ever see Disney at better than $50 per share in their lifetime. I can't be the only one wondering this. That's why I get a little annoyed when I read puff pieces like this one on Iger. Is he really that much of a visionary? And is he doing anything that original? Did he invent the concept of synergy? As far as I know, he did not. One of the main points of the article centered on the major franchises that Disney has going for it. Just once, I'd love to hear about Disney's plans to take one of its existing Disney Channel properties that has not hit franchise status and turn it into the next Hannah Montana phenomenon. To be fair, there may have been a few articles here and there on the subject, but none have studied it to my satisfaction, certainly.

Unless you are completely out of touch with pop culture, you probably know that Disney's (NYSE: DIS) High School Musical 3: Senior Year is coming to theaters today. However, there's another film that's coming out as well, one that's darker, and quite a bit bloodier to boot: Lions Gate Entertainment's (NYSE: LGF) Saw V.

This is actually going to be one of the most exciting weekends ever for box-office observers. Exactly how high will Musical gross over the weekend? That's the big question. I've read guesses that center around the $30 million mark. I've seen one pundit predict $40 million. Well, let's consider the following. Saw IV was released last year around this time. It grossed about $31 million in its debut weekend according to data at Boxofficemojo.com. Saw II and Saw III grossed a similar amount in their respective opening weekends. Given the fact that the Musical franchise has captured a lot of zeitgeist equity the last couple years, and given that it isn't limited by an R-rating, I'd have to assume that we're looking at between $40 million and $50 million for the opening weekend. I say it will be toward the upper end of that range.

Now, where does this leave Saw V? Actually, this weekend is even more interesting than it appears at first glance. Lions Gate's stock has been declining along with the market, but it certainly also has critics in terms of the quality of its earnings and cash-flow growth, as well as the fact that it spooks some people because it has direct exposure to the very risky movie business. The studio, without a doubt, needs Saw V to hit it out of the park. It desperately needs to be number one. For one thing, the opening grosses for the franchise have, as I sort of alluded to earlier, plateaued. To me, that means that Lions Gate is increasing its risk with every new sequel. For another thing, investors who are losing money on Lions Gate want to know that management is capable of determining the life cycle of a franchise; they want to have faith that the powers that be recognize when sequels should stop, or when they should bypass theatrical exhibition and see release on other media. If Saw V doesn't live up to its gore-rich reputation, then Wall Street might lose faith in Lions Gate. From my perspective, I have to wonder if people aren't getting sick of the movies. I love the concept, and the character of Jigsaw, as portrayed by Tobin Bell, is a brilliant psychotic icon of industrious ingenuity, rampant contradiction, and cruel philosophical wit. That being said, here's the bottom line: the first movie was undeniably great, the rest were...eh, letdowns. The novelty, for me at least, was contained within the frames of the first flick only.

Oh reality, it's not for me
And it makes me laugh
Oh, fantasy world and Disney girls
I'm coming back
-- The Beach Boys, "Disney Girls"

Boy, Disney (NYSE: DIS) had a rough week. First the Marie Digby flap, and now this: In case it's not in your job description to pay mind to such things, the internet right now is all atwitter about a circulating photo of starlet Vanessa Hudgens baring her mouse ears, and then some. Miss Hudgens is one of the stars from Disney's very massive High School Musical franchise, and girlfriend of HSM co-star (and perhaps budding shutterbug?) Zac Efron.



But we're not here to judge -- well, I'm not here to judge. The boss is bothered though -- she had to explain to her seven-year-old what "nude" means (daughter's insightful reply: "Isn't she embarrassed?" From the mouths of babes...).

A few days before the debut of High School Musical 2, BloggingStocks' Tracy Lapa asked the question High School Musical 2: Can Disney repeat success?

According to The New York Times, the answer is yes: "Despite lukewarm reviews, the film's debut drew 17.2 million viewers, according to preliminary ratings estimates from the channel. If those estimates hold up, it would make the debut of "High School Musical 2" the No. 1 television program of the week, on cable or network, as well as the most watched show of any kind in basic cable history."

I doubt that anyone was expecting High School Musical 2 to be critically-acclaimed, so we'll have to go by the ratings, which make this movie a huge success. But Disney (NYSE: DIS) is currently at work on another, in-theater sequel, and I'm going to predict that that will be a bust. High School Musical 2 didn't achieve such high ratings because every 13-year old was watching -- Like Harry Potter, the movie had cross-over appeal. My grandmother watched it. But I can't see anyone over the age of 15 going to a theater to see it partly because, as popular as the franchise is, it's also seen as corny, a little too Donny Osmond-esque. For the record, I'm not going to say whether I have seen the movie.

Zac Efron has been turned into a plastic doll. Not only Zac Efron, but all the leads from the new film Hairspray. At this point, two questions probably come to mind:

1. Who is Zac Efron?
2. Why does he matter?

If you can already answer either of these questions, you are either one of the 100 million people who have seen the Disney (NYSE: DIS) film High School Musical or something HSM-related, or you are one of the millions of people who have heard of the film-turned-Broadway-musical-turned-back-to-film Hairspray, which opened in theaters Friday. What is interesting about Zac Efron is that while his only acknowledgment in the Hairspray trailer is within a list of names trailing the major celebrities, Efron should be a featured star.

If you have never heard of High School Musical, let me get you up to speed. The Disney Channel original movie, featuring Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens (a budding superstar with a gold debut album, figured to have earned $2 million last year), has sold over 7 million DVDs. The High School Musical soundtrack was the No. 1 CD last year, selling more than 3.7 million copies. The film was exported to 100 nations, launched an arena tour and "High School Musical: The Ice Tour," and will by followed by the sequel, High School Musical 2, due out this August. This is all, of course, in addition to your licensed merchandise. Yeah, I guess you could call it a franchise.

In essence, High School Musical has become a worldwide brand phenomenon, propelling Zac Efron to the forefront of popularity for a good segment of the population. Hairspray, on the other hand, is really Efron's ticket to breaking out from under Disney and reaching a different, older demographic. It is also rumored that Zac Efron will star in the remake of the musical movie Footloose. Apparently Efron is the go-to guy when it comes to musicals. So, whether or not you've seen or heard Efron, there's a pretty good chance you will sometime in the near future.

It seems like Play Along, a division of Jakks Pacific (NASDAQ: JAKK) and the makers of the 12" inch tall Hairspray dolls, are onto a good thing turning Efron into a collectible. Especially since his role in the film, about which co-star Nikki Blonsky raves, "He just jumps off the screen and right into every girl's heart," undoubtedly contributed to the film's weekend gross of $27.8 million. While loyal Disney kids may or may not see Hairspray, it's likely that their next visit to Toys 'R' Us will result in a quest for the plastic Efron, and now you newly exposed adults will be able to relate to their kids for $14.99 (or a singing version for $20-25).

Maybe Zac Efron is more doll-worthy than we may think.

Tracy Lapa is an AOL Money & Finance intern who recently graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a B.A. in Communications.