20 years after the show's debut, its star may shine once more.
Following the recent revival of Phineas & Ferb, it seems that Disney has now recognized the financial opportunities of rekindling 2000s Disney Channel nostalgia. Even better: After ghosting one of their most important stars for many years, they're now putting her at the forefront again.
Success and denial
In March 2006, Disney Channel broadcast the first episode of a show that took the hearts of teens worldwide by storm. The tale of high school student Miley Stewart, who secretly leads a double life as the eponymous pop star Hannah Montana, somehow managed to seem fantastical and relatable at the same time, paving the way for four highly-rated seasons of TV and absurdly high merchandise revenues.
Part of the reason behind this enormous success was the casting choice of future real-life pop icon Miley Cyrus as the main protagonist. She joined the show as a 13-year child actor, one of the best to ever do it, and rekindled her star power for her own very successful musical career.
One of the – at least for the Walt Disney Company – unfortunate side effects of this icon status was the fact that Cyrus went on to be very annoyed with how she seemed to be "typecast" as an innocent, wholesome do-good girl and sought to break with this role by acting increasingly provocative in public.
Parents complained to the company that they would no longer feel comfortable allowing their children to watch Hannah Montana due to Cyrus's sexualized stage persona, effectively straining the working relationship between Disney and Cyrus for many years.
A potential revival
All the more surprising, then, that Cyrus – after being barred from even singing the songs she did for Hannah Montana in public – recently confirmed that she will be participating in a new Hannah Montana project to celebrate the series' 20th anniversary:
"I want to design something really, really special for it, because it really was the beginning of all of this."
Perhaps not completely unsurprising, considering that both entities have recently seemingly warmed up to each other a bit, with the Walt Disney Company acknowledging Cyrus' performance in Hannah Montana as part of their Disney Legends program on the one hand and the extremely influential pop singer apparently being less keen on distancing herself from her beginnings.
While the specifications of this "really, really special" event are yet unknown, fans have speculated that it may consist of re-recordings or live performances of Hannah Montana hits by Cyrus for the first time in decades – or even a revival of the TV series. Whichever the case, it seems that the long drought of Hannah Montana content may finally be over.
What do you think Cyrus may be hinting at? Official Hannah Montana concerts? A new season? A series reboot? Let us know in the comments below!