High School Musical

TV
Kids Weekly, August 15, 2005

NAME: High School Musical

ORIGIN:
This TV movie
is based on an original idea from Bill Borden, who has served as producer on
numerous feature films, including Desperado, La Bamba, White Nights and Against All Odds.

CREATOR:
Bill Borden

TV
SHOW: High
School Musical
is a Disney Channel original movie. A sequel is in the works and is expected to
air during the summer of 2007.

High
School Musical
tells the story of the kind-hearted, hunky-looking jock Troy and the
brainy-and-shy-but-beautiful Gabriella who discover a shared passion for music
and singing. They decide to try out for a musical at their high school, but are
up against the school’s established drama duo, snooty Sharpay and her brother
Ryan. Buoyed by their feelings for each other and a determination to go against
the grain, Troy and Gabriella fight the odds and get the lead roles.

Since
its premiere on January 20, 2006, the movie was televised 13 times on Disney
Channel U.S.—between January 20 and July 17—and was seen by over 37
million unduplicated total viewers.

EXECUTIVE
PRODUCERS: Bill
Borden and Barry Rosenbush

COMMISSIONING
BROADCASTER: Disney
Channel U.S.

TV
SALES: High
School Musical has
begun airing all over the world on the 23 non-U.S. Disney Channels as well as
on third-party broadcasters. By the end of the year, it will be in 100
countries.

In
June, the movie premiered on Disney Channels in Australia, New Zealand and
Southeast Asia and delivered the best-ever results for a Disney Channel
Original Movie in all of these markets.

The
cast will travel to London for the red-carpet European premiere in September.
The movie will debut across the continent in fall 2006. In its first
terrestrial deal, it was licensed to BBC One.

MAJOR
TOY LICENSEES: Disney
Consumer Products launched an exclusive licensed merchandise program at Limited
2 and Justice retailers throughout the U.S. in June. The line includes High
School Musical
apparel, posters and stationery items.

A DVD
board game from Mattel will be released this fall.

OTHER
PRODUCTS:

CD: In
the U.S., the soundtrack is the number one album of the year to date, with 2.8
million CDs sold. In addition to being the year's number one album thus far, it
is also the number one soundtrack and number one kids' album of the year to
date. The soundtrack twice was number one for the week on the Billboard Top
200. It is the first-ever TV-movie soundtrack to make it to number one on that
chart. The soundtrack was the number one album on the iTunes Music Store for
three weeks.

DVD:
The High School Musical DVD has sold over 2.3 million copies since its release on May 23.

PUBLISHING:
A junior novel based on the movie hit the number one spot on The New York
Times
bestseller list for children's paperbacks, and a folio of sheet music for
guitar, piano and vocals is a top seller.

Disney
Publishing will roll out a book series (original content that extends the
characters in new stories) with the first book reaching the market in April
2007 and a new book following every 60 days through June 2008.

A High
School Musical
Poster Book will be available via Scholastic and Barnes and Noble bookstores in
the U.S. in October.

WIRELESS:
Disney Studios released key song master tones and mobile phone ringtones on
mobile-phone services including Cingular and Verizon. Since its release, it is
the best-selling Disney ringtone on the market.

DIGITAL:
High School Musical was the first TV movie to be offered on the iTunes Music Store and
eight music videos from the movie are currently also available on iTunes.

Within
one day after the January 20 premiere of High School Musical, there were 1.2 million unique
visitors to DisneyChannel.com—the most ever for the site—and
500,000 downloads of the lyrics for the sing-along telecast on January 21.

In the
U.S., digital sales of single songs from the soundtrack exceeded 1.5 million.

STRATEGY
FOR ROLLOUT: There
is hardly a child in the U.S. between the ages of 6 and 14, or his or her
parents, who hasn’t heard of High School Musical. This Disney Channel original
movie took the U.S. by storm, and by every measure is having a similar effect
in the other territories where it has been aired—for now Australia, New
Zealand and Southeast Asia. The movie will air on all 23 Disney channels around
the world, and will make its European debut in September. The movie is also
being sold to terrestrial broadcasters, and was recently acquired by BBC One.

Part of
what fueled the success of High School Musical in the U.S. were the repeat
airings of the movie on Disney Channel, not only in its original form, but in
the karaoke sing-along version—which featured subtitles during all the
songs—and the dance-along version. For the dance-along version, the
producers brought the cast together again to walk through the dance numbers and
teach the sequences so the kids at home could dance, too.

According
to Bill Borden, the movie’s creator and one of its executive producers, the
huge success of the movie is due to a combination of factors. “We wanted to
make a movie that is emblematic of kids’ experiences in high school,” says
Borden. “And one of those experiences is that you have to fit into your clique.
You have to feel like you belong. That is the theme of the movie. It’s the same
kind of theme as Romeo and Juliet, they went against social pressure, they went
against their clique.” And so did Troy and Gabriella, and since going against a
clique is something kids everywhere can relate to, this theme made the movie so
successful.