Catfight!
Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan are once again at each other’s throats. This time, the bubbly teen sensations aren’t fighting over Aaron Carter but for box office supremacy. Duff‘s in search of The Perfect Man to woo her divorced mother; Lohan‘s taking the Love Bug for its first spin in 25 years with Herbie: Fully Loaded.
And the stakes are high, as both are headed down the same career path. They catapulted to fame as Disney darlings–Duff with her Lizzie McGuire sitcom, Lohan with remakes of The Parent Trap and Freaky Friday. And they’re also pop princesses out to dethrone Jessica Simpson, Mandy Moore and Avril Lavigne.
But whose film career will thrive when they get too old to grace the cover of Seventeen and MTV drops their videos from rotation?
Duff’s Career Highs
1. Cheaper by the Dozen…$138.6 million
2. Cinderella Story…$51.4 million
3. Agent Cody Banks…$47.9 million
Blessed with a sunny disposition, Duff‘s contemporary fairy tales strike a chord with boys–obsessed tweens eager for squeaky–clean fun.
Lohan’s Career Highs
1. Freaky Friday…$110.2 million
2. Mean Girls…$86 million
3. The Parent Trap…$66.3 million
She’s the Kurt Russell of the 21st century. Her spunky Disney remakes appeal to kids who can’t tell Hayley Mills from Jodie Foster and moms who lived their first Freaky Friday in middle school.
The Winner: Lohan
Duff & Lohan’s Career Lows
Duff‘s Raise Your Voice…$10.4 million. Duff should have kept her mouth shut.
Lohan‘s Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen…$29.3 million. Ditto for Lohan, although more wanted to hear her spills the beans than listen to Duff burst into song.
The Biggest Loser: Duff
Last Seen
Duff: Warbling her way through the Fame-esque Raise Your Voice.
Lohan: Bearing her claws for the deliciously bitchy Mean Girls. And she drew blood.
The Biggest Loser: Duff
Now Out
Duff: Setting up Heather Locklear with The Perfect Man Christopher Noth. What, no Duffy-ified version of “Matchmaker, Matchmaker”? This romantic comedy didn’t enchant as many young girls in its opening weekend as Cinderella Story did last year. And the presence of TV staples Locklear and Noth failed to make The Perfect Man requisite mother-daughter viewing over the Father’s Day weekend.
Lohan: Putting the pedal to the metal in Herbie: Fully Loaded. Lohan overhauling a Disney live-action classic equals big bucks for the Mouse House. But isn’t it time Lohan slam the brakes on Disney remakes?
The Winner: Lohan
Short-term Prospects
Duff: More light and fluffy stuff from Duff. She’s keeping Steve Martin on his toes in Cheaper by the Dozen 2 and preparing to engage in the CGI caper Foodfight! . Also, she and little sis Haylie unseal their lips for Material Girls. Can the Duffs succeed where the Olsen twins failed? Madonna, who’s executive producing this satire about two Hilton-eseque heirs left penniless, believes so.
Lohan: She needs more than Lady Luck to justify her $7 million salary for this romantic comedy about changing fortunes. And Robert Altman‘s adaptation of Garrison Keillor’s radio show A Prairie Home Companion won’t likely lure anyone other than regular visitors to Lake Wobegon, but at least she’s toiling under a director who can nurture her talents.
The Winner: Duff
Long-term Prospects
Duff: She’s cute. She’s perky. That’s about it. Nothing Duff‘s done suggests she can be anything but cute and perky. Had she made Monster, we would marvel at how cute and perky she is slicing and dicing one of her poor unfortunate victims.
Lohan: The newly svelte Lohan, 18, wants to get physical. But the moment Scarlett Johansson dropped out of Mission: Impossible III, director J.J. Abrams obviously wanted to reunite with his Felicity ingénue Keri Russell. But if Lohan can survive her toughest challenge yet–meeting the demands of notorious taskmaster Altman–she can summon the courage to walk away from the next Disney remake she’s offered.
The Winner: Lohan
Scandalous Behavior
Duff: Aside from her spats with Lohan and Avril Lavigne, and her alleged lip synching, Duff appears to be as wholesome as her PG-rated comedies. And, at least according to her Web blog, the 17-year-old Harvard student’s more likely to crack open a bottle of sparkling apple cider than the finest champagne.
Lohan: She’s made headlines over her estranged father’s odd behavior, her partying, her breasts, her recent weight loss and a car accident involving a paparazzo. What don’t we know about Lohan? And do we really need to know more?
The Winner: Duff
In the Ring
Duff: We’ve seen Agent Cody Banks. The heroine of Cinderella Story is no Cinderella gal. Odds are even Dakota Fanning could knock Hilary on her duff.
Lohan: OK, so she’s dropped a weight class. But once a mean girl, always a mean girl.
The Winner: Duff
The Bottom Line:
Enough already with the sickly sweet comedies and Disney remakes. Time for these gals to do something daring and different, or they’ll end up old and forgotten like Molly Ringwald. Take a cue from The Princess Diaries’ Anne Hathaway, who will tackle more mature matters in Havoc. Or Christina Ricci, who made The Ice Storm after her That Darn Cat remake. With Duff, what we see is probably what we get, and that likely means a return to TV when her fans outgrow her. But >Lohan’s got potential. She displayed true pluck in Mean Girls and held her own against Jamie Lee Curtis in Freaky Friday. Mean Girls afforded Lohan the perfect opportunity to break free of Mickey Mouse’s grasp. Instead, she’s scurried back to the Mouse House to score a safe hit with Herbie: Fully Loaded. Lohan needs to move on and try her hand at a dramatically meaty role. Otherwise, she’s going to find herself behind the wheel of the Love Bug for years to come.
