Kelly Clarkson and Justin Guarini say 'American Idol' movie filming was 'piece of cake'

The Associated Press reports that Kelly Clarkson and Justin Guarini, the finalists in the first season of Fox's American Idol, described the filming of their upcoming movie as a "piece of cake." The movie, From Justin to Kelly (or J2K), went from concept to completed film in about 2.5 months, but neither Kelly nor Justin feel that they were under much pressure during filming.


The producers, led by Idol creator Simon Fuller, who was also responsible for the big-screen flop Spice World starring the Spice Girls, allocated just three weeks of rehearsals for Kelly and Justin to learn the script, the songs and the dances. J2K was then was filmed in six weeks. Neither Justin nor Kelly felt that they worked as hard on the movie as they had worked on Idol and its subsequent nationwide tour.

We wonder whether this lack of pressure (and effort?) might, in fact, be the cause of the negative reviews being generated by From Justin to Kelly so far. Perhaps a little more rehearsal and a little more time was in order.

The wide release of J2K will finally take place at 10 days and counting. A very successful opening of the movie would approach the targets set by Hilary Duff's two films this year: Agent Cody Banks, which did $15 million in its opening weekend, and The Lizzie McGuire Movie, which did even better at $17.5 million. A very unsuccessful opening would be similar to The Real Cancun: about $2 million. An opening by J2K in that range would probably kill future crossovers between reality TV and movies for the time being. Judging by early reactions to J2K, that might not be a bad thing.

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