Reception
The first broadcast of the film on August 17, 2007 broke records, receiving 17.2 million viewers. This number made it, at the time, the most-watched basic-cable telecast in history (the previous record was held by an edition of ESPN's Monday Night Football between the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys on October 23, 2006, which attracted 16 million viewers), the most-watched made-for-cable movie ever (the previous record was held by TNT's January 21, 2001 airing of Crossfire Trail, which brought in 12.5 million viewers), and the largest audience of any program on broadcast or cable in the 2007 summer television season, along with Friday nights for the past five years. Ratings for the second showing of the movie fell to 8.4 million, and the third showing fell to 7.4 million, totaling the premiere weekend to 33.04 million viewers.
In Latin America, the premiere of High School Musical 2 was seen by 3.3 million viewers in the north region. The film was the most-watched in its schedule, among all cable channels, and produced the highest rating of the channel, surpassing all original films of Disney Channel. Among other records, the premiere in Argentina surpassed the debut of High School Musical the last year, in a 107 percent, while in Brazil the sequel reached 208 percent, and Mexico did so with 61 percent. In the United Kingdom, the movie became Disney Channel UK's most viewed program ever, totaling 1.2 million viewers in its first showing.
The film was generally well received by critics, gaining a score of 77/100 at Metacritic, while it received a generally mixed response of 50% on Rotten Tomatoes. USA Today's Robert Bianco awarded the film three stars out of four, saying High School Musical 2 was "sweet, smart, bursting with talent and energy, and awash in innocence". While critics enjoyed the film, they noted that the timing of the movie's premiere seemed odd, premiering just when school was about to start up again, while the movie's plot involved the gang going on summer Vacation. High School Musical 2 won the "So Hot Right Now" award at the Nickelodeon Australian Kids' Choice Awards 2007 in which High School Musical cast mate, Zac Efron hosted with The Veronicas.
Read more about this topic: High School Musical 2
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)