Billboard Featured Artist

After Almost Five Years Building ‘Hannah Montana’ On TV, In Record Stores And On Tour, Miley Cyrus Makes A Movie — And Maybe A Dance Craze.

Miley Cyrus is attempting to teach an adult the Hoedown Throwdown, the big dance number from “Hannah Montana: The Movie,” and it’s not going well. “We did it in one day!” she gasps, as I tell her how I’ve flailed through the YouTube instructional video. “We just all kind of made it up as we went along.” It doesn’t help that Cyrus offers this consolation and advice over the phone while I’m trying to follow along on YouTube—and untangle myself from my phone cord.

“Well,” she patiently explains, “you have to be semi-coordinated to do it.”

Then it dawns on me that this is exactly how Cyrus’ legion of preteen female fans is learning the dance: YouTube onscreen, phone to ear, someone on phone offering encouragement amid occasional peals of laughter.

Such is Cyrus’ Everygirl power. For the better part of five years, the 16-year-old has had a direct dial into the cerebral fun cortex of the brains of millions of 10-year-old girls. Under the stewardship of the Walt Disney Co., Cyrus has starred in “Hannah Montana,” which remains one of the top-rated kids’ TV shows on cable; sold more than 7 million albums; starred in “Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour 3-D,” which opened at No. 1 and earned more than $65 million at the box office, making it the top-grossing concert film; and helped sell a clothing factory’s worth of merchandise at Wal-Mart. That all adds up. According to Billboard’s Money Makers chart (Feb. 21), Cyrus was the 15th-biggest earner of 2008, taking in $48.9 million from sales of music, ringtones and concert tickets.

On April 10, the franchise about the schoolgirl-by-day-pop-star-at-night will get a narrative take on the big screen and an accompanying soundtrack. In “Hannah Montana: The Movie,” Cyrus’ character from the show, Miley Stewart, gets a little too embroiled in some divalicious antics while in her Montana guise and winds up brawling with Tyra Banks in a posh boutique. Stewart’s father—played by Cyrus’ real-life dad, Billy Ray—sends her back home to Tennessee to bring her down to earth. After getting in a little Henry David Thoreau time communing with nature (and, in an age-appropriate fashion, with a cute local farm fellow played by Lucas Till), Stewart weighs the benefits of a life less glam.

The two early standouts from the movie’s soundtrack are “Hoedown Throwdown” and the current single “The Climb”; this week “Climb” is No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and “Hoedown” is No. 56. The soundtrack will be released March 24 and features 18 tracks: seven are performed by Cyrus in her Montana persona, four by Cyrus herself, one by Billy Ray and one by her and him together. Newcomer Steve Rushton, who just signed to Hollywood Records, contributes two tracks (see story, page 20); Taylor Swift adds a new song, “Crazier”; and Rascal Flatts supplies an acoustic version of “Bless the Broken Road.”

“For us, it’s really unique because we can promote ‘Hannah Montana’ to more than Disney fans,” says Damon Whiteside, senior VP of marketing for Walt Disney Records. “The other country artists provide a whole new world for us.”

Some of the singles besides “The Climb” have already made a chart impact—and the gone-country tone of the soundtrack appears to be working. Billy Ray’s solo track is already No. 54 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart; it also serves at the title track to his next album, which will be released April 7, not coincidentally, the week the movie comes out. (In early test screenings of the “Hannah Montana” movie, the father-daughter bonding moment where the Cyruses perform “Butterfly” consistently ranked at the top.)

“We wanted to honor the Disney Channel show without totally emulating it,” says Mitchell Leib, president of music and soundtracks for Walt Disney Studios. “Billy Ray is such a force of the show and such a complement to Miley, and we wanted to establish music being a part of their lives.”

While “Hannah Montana” the TV show certainly features its fair share of music, the movie takes it one step further. In the film, the music is presented as an indelible part of the characters’ lives—Rascal Flatts performs at a neighborhood party like it’s an everyday occurrence. It’s a narrative strategy that has reaped soundtrack sales for other recent movies, in particular 2007’s “Juno” and last year’s “Twilight.”

Of course, the movie has some good old-fashioned will-she-or-won’t-she drama to get fans into the theater. The trailer for “Hannah Montana: The Movie” flashes in giant protagonist-facing-a-turning-point capital letters that Stewart has had “the best of both worlds . . . now, she has to choose just one.” In the real world, once Cyrus sold 1.4 million of 2008’s “Breakout,” her first album without an implicit “Hannah” connection, it seemed inevitable that she’d shed her blond bewigged alter ego for a career under her own name.

Not so fast, Cyrus says. This is Disney, after all, and—Bambi’s mom notwithstanding—they’re not in the habit of killing off major (and profitable) characters. Cyrus has eight more episodes of the third season of “Hannah Montana” yet to film.

“This movie was never meant to be the end of Hannah Montana,” she says. “The thing is, a lot of people put where the show’s future lays in my hands—and it’s not up to me. It’s up to Disney and whether they want more episodes, and we hope that they do.” (A Disney Channel representative says it’s retaining the option to renew the show for a fourth season; a soundtrack with the music from the show’s third season is expected in July.)

Nonetheless, even the hint of putting Montana out to pasture is a tease that will pack tweens into theaters. By the life span of teen trends, “Hannah Montana” should practically be ready for the old folks’ home after close to five years—but Disney’s marketing and promotional smarts have ensured that some new twist is always just around the corner. In this case, it’s using the movie to show fans that Cyrus is taking another step toward establishing herself as more than just a Disney artist.

“Certainly Disney and Miley have enjoyed an enormous success together—and there’s additional trust that goes along with the massive success,” Leib says. “We wanted to do something that was concurrent with Miley’s interest to be able to wear multiple hats in the film, the music and the record business. We were sensitive to Miley’s own career direction.”

The Cyrus sheen helped secure multiple musician cameos for the film. The members of Rascal Flatts appear as themselves, Swift sings at an open-mic night, and Vanessa Williams plays a pushy record label publicist. “There’s a lot of prototypes for that,” Williams says with a laugh. “My daughter is 8 years old and she’s the reason I did the movie. They called with the offer, and I said, ‘Sure. Yes. You don’t have to show me the script.’ ”

Disney plans that kind of character awareness with almost military precision, and the same marketing machinery that promoted Cyrus can boost the soundtrack—or even individual tracks. Take, for example, the evolution of the “Hoedown Throwdown.”

Leib approached songwriters with a dire-sounding task: Write a song that could be “Miley’s ‘Macarena’ meets ‘Achy Breaky Heart.’ ” Songwriters Nikki Hassman and Adam Anders stepped up to the challenge and worked with choreographer Jamal Sims and movie director Peter Chelsom to create the sequence that becomes a centerpiece of the film. “There’s humor in it, and it’s very, very true to the spirit of the movie, and that’s why I think it’s striking a nerve,” Leib says.

When it came to actually cashing in on the song, Disney teased “Hoedown Throwdown” on the “Hannah Montana” TV show, played the song in heavy rotation on Radio Disney—for the week ending March 15, it was the No. 10 most-played song on the station, according to Nielsen BDS—and uploaded the instructional video to YouTube, where it was viewed 1.2 million times in two weeks.

The song can be purchased on Radio Disney’s special section of iTunes, and the instructional video will be one of the four clips included in a deluxe digital edition of the soundtrack.

Thanks to the soundtrack’s country tinge, Disney is working the “Hannah Montana” film and album beyond their in-house properties. The cable country music channel GAC will debut a Billy Ray Cyrus-hosted, behind-the-scenes look at making of the music of the film, which will run repeatedly before the movie comes out.

“In addition to our teen marketing, we feel the country music market is a great place to reach out to the moms who have kids in the ‘Hannah’ demographic,” Walt Disney Records’ Whiteside says.

Along with GAC and the country music channel CMT, Disney teamed with country radio stations and the Nashville tourism board on a sweepstakes that will fly winners to Nashville for an early screening of the movie hosted by Miley and Billy Ray Cyrus.

There is also the impact of the perpetual hum of interest in Cyrus, be it tattle from the tabloids, shots from the paparazzi or blogs and YouTube videos from the star herself.

Amid the buildup to the film’s premiere and the release of the soundtrack, Cyrus released an autobiography, the aptly titled “Miles to Go.” “It’s just an honor for people to be able to relate to me and my music—and not so much the character anymore,” she says. “I can’t be Hannah Montana forever. I have to have something after this. I can’t do this when I’m 30.”

And while she may not be footloose and “Hannah”-free just yet, Cyrus is back adjusting to life in Los Angeles. Her boyfriend, 20-year-old country singer/model Justin Gaston, drops her off at her Pilates lessons that double as credit for her physical education requirements. (Cyrus still needs to take PE—remember, she’s still in high school.) She cackles with glee as she points out to Gaston an orange passer-by, the victim of a particularly unfortunate spray tan—”It’s freaking me out! Everyone else is totally normal-colored around here. She has a huge splotch!”—and she’s excited about the birthday party she’s throwing that evening for “Hannah Montana” co-star Emily Osment.

“This is, like, the first time I’ve seen all my friends in seven months,” Cyrus says. “It’s hard, man. With all the stuff that goes on with this business, I only want to do something if I absolutely love it.”

And the scene that she loves the most in the “Hannah Montana” movie? The Hoedown Throwdown.

Of course.