The Last Song (film)
Encyclopedia
The Last Song is a 2010 American coming of age
Coming of age
Coming of age is a young person's transition from childhood to adulthood. The age at which this transition takes place varies in society, as does the nature of the transition. It can be a simple legal convention or can be part of a ritual, as practiced by many societies...

 drama film developed alongside Nicholas Sparks novel by the same name
The Last Song (novel)
The Last Song is a 2009 novel by American author Nicholas Sparks. The Last Song is Sparks' fourteenth published novel , and was written specifically as the basis for the film adaptation by the same name. It was released on September 8, 2009 by Grand Central Publishing...

. The film was directed by Julie Anne Robinson
Julie Anne Robinson
Julie Anne Robinson is a British theatre, television, and film director perhaps best known for her work on British television. She earned BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for directing the first half of the BBC miniseries Blackpool...

 in her feature film directorial debut and co-written by Sparks and Jeff Van Wie. The Last Song stars Miley Cyrus
Miley Cyrus
Miley Ray Cyrus is an American actress and pop singer-songwriter. She achieved wide fame for her role as Miley Stewart/Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel sitcom Hannah Montana....

, Liam Hemsworth
Liam Hemsworth
Liam Hemsworth is an Australian actor. He took the role of Josh Taylor in the soap opera Neighbours and as "Marcus" on the children's television series The Elephant Princess and appeared in the American film The Last Song, released on 31 March 2010...

, and Greg Kinnear
Greg Kinnear
Gregory "Greg" Kinnear is an American actor and television personality who first rose to stardom in 1991. He has appeared in more than 20 motion pictures, and was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in As Good as It Gets.-Early life:Kinnear was born in Logansport, Indiana, the son of...

 and follows a troubled teenager as she reconnects with her estranged father and falls in love during a summer in a quiet Southern United States beach town. The film is distributed by Touchstone Pictures
Touchstone Pictures
Touchstone Pictures is an American film production label and is one of several film labels of the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group. Established in 1984, its releases typically feature more mature themes and darker tones than those that are released under the Walt Disney Pictures banner.Touchstone...

.

Sparks was approached to write both the film's screenplay and the novel. Sparks completed the screenplay in January 2009, prior to the completion of the novel, making The Last Song his first script to be optioned for film. The setting, originally in North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

 like the novel, moved to Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...

 after the states had campaigned for months to host production. Upon beginning production in Tybee Island, Georgia
Tybee Island, Georgia
Tybee Island is an island and city in Chatham County, Georgia near the city of Savannah in the southeastern United States. It is the easternmost point in the state of Georgia. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 2,990. Tybee Island is an island and city in Chatham County, Georgia near...

 and nearby Savannah
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...

, The Last Song became the first movie to be both shot and set in Tybee Island. Filming lasted from June 15 to August 18, 2009 with much of it occurring on the island's beach and pier. The Last Song was originally scheduled for wide release
Wide release
Wide release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing nationally . Specifically, a movie is considered to be in wide release when it is on 600 screens or more in the United States and Canada.In the US, films holding an NC-17 rating almost never have a...

 on January 8, 2010, but was postponed to March 31, 2010.

Plot

At sixteen, Veronica "Ronnie" Miller (Miley Cyrus
Miley Cyrus
Miley Ray Cyrus is an American actress and pop singer-songwriter. She achieved wide fame for her role as Miley Stewart/Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel sitcom Hannah Montana....

) remains as rebellious as she was the day her parents divorced and her father moved to Georgia three years prior. Once a classical piano child prodigy under the tutelage of her father, Steve Miller (Greg Kinnear
Greg Kinnear
Gregory "Greg" Kinnear is an American actor and television personality who first rose to stardom in 1991. He has appeared in more than 20 motion pictures, and was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in As Good as It Gets.-Early life:Kinnear was born in Logansport, Indiana, the son of...

), Ronnie now ignores the instrument and has not spoken with her father since he left. While Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...

 has been interested in her since she was young, Ronnie refuses to attend.

Now, Steve has the chance to reconnect with his estranged daughter when her mother, Kim Miller (Kelly Preston
Kelly Preston
Kelly Preston is an American actress and former model.- Early years :Preston was born Kelly Kamalelehua Smith in Honolulu, Hawaii. Her mother, Linda, was an administrator of a mental health center, and her father, who worked for an agricultural firm, drowned when Preston was three years old...

) sends the rebellious teen and her younger brother, Jonah (Bobby Coleman
Bobby Coleman
Robert Moorhouse "Bobby" Coleman III is an American child actor. He is best known for his roles in the films Martian Child, as the title character, and The Last Song.-Life and career:...

), to spend the summer with him. Steve, a former Juilliard School professor and concert pianist, lives a quiet life in Tybee Island, the small beach town in Georgia where he grew up, working on a stained glass
Stained glass
The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...

 window
Window
A window is a transparent or translucent opening in a wall or door that allows the passage of light and, if not closed or sealed, air and sound. Windows are usually glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent material like float glass. Windows are held in place by frames, which...

 for the local church to replace the one the church lost in a fire. According to the locals, Steve had actually set fire to the church one night.

After arrival, Ronnie becomes miserable, defiant, and defensive toward all those around her. Including handsome, popular Will Blakelee (Liam Hemsworth
Liam Hemsworth
Liam Hemsworth is an Australian actor. He took the role of Josh Taylor in the soap opera Neighbours and as "Marcus" on the children's television series The Elephant Princess and appeared in the American film The Last Song, released on 31 March 2010...

) whose introduction involved crashing into her during a volleyball match, and accidentally spilling Ronnie's strawberry shake on her. She shrugs him off and meets Blaze, an outcast who lives with her boyfriend Marcus. While at a beach campfire, Marcus hits on Ronnie and Blaze mistakes this for Ronnie flirting with him. Angered by this, Blaze sets Ronnie up by putting a bracelet in Ronnie's bag. Just as Ronnie walks out she is promptly arrested, which reminded her of an incident that occurred back home. Later on, Ronnie discovers a Loggerhead Sea Turtle
Loggerhead Sea Turtle
The loggerhead sea turtle , or loggerhead, is an oceanic turtle distributed throughout the world. It is a marine reptile, belonging to the family Cheloniidae. The average loggerhead measures around long when fully grown, although larger specimens of up to have been discovered...

 nest at the beach by her house and while protecting it, she meets Will again on his volunteer work for the aquarium. After a night of staying up to defend the turtles with Will, she discovers he is deeper than she believed, and begins to have feelings for him.

As Ronnie falls in love with Will, she also manages to form a better and stronger bond with her father. As their relationship deepens, Will invites her to his sister's wedding. Later that day, the turtle eggs hatch and her father collapses with a coughing seizure that evening. Ronnie immediately has Steve rushed to a hospital and realizes that he had been diagnosed with cancer long before her summer visit (in a prior scene, he reveals having been on a medication and possibly setting fire to the church) and why her parents' marriage has fallen apart. She decides to start spending more time with her father since he is unlikely to live any longer. Around the same time, Ronnie and Will get into a confrontation because Will confessed that Scott had actually set fire to the church, but he had never confessed. With Will now leaving for college, there is no time to patch things up.

Steve has been working on a piece of music for quite a while. Fall comes and Jonah returns to New York for the school year but Ronnie stays behind to take care of her father. Leading a slow life she tries to fill in the three years of ignoring her father into a couple months. She continues working on his piece of music (titled "For Ronnie"), finishing what her father could not (because of his hands). When she finally plays the last chord, she looks up to see that Steve had died while listening to her play and is heartbroken.

At his funeral she stands to make a speech but declares that none of the speeches she wrote would ever be able to show how wonderful her father really was. Instead, she decides to share with them the song she helped finish. Before she sits down to play, sunlight shines in through the stained glass window. Ronnie smiles as she remembers hearing her father say to Jonah that every time light shines in through that window, it's him and says "Hi, Daddy."

At the funeral, while Ronnie is talking to the attendants, she runs into Will. He tells her he liked the song she played and that he knows her dad did too and Ronnie thanks him for coming to the funeral. At the end of the movie, Ronnie is packing up her dad's stuff when she sees Will standing outside. She goes outside to see him and Will apologizes to her for everything's that happened and Ronnie forgives him. Will surprises Ronnie by revealing that he will be transferring to Columbia
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 in order to be with her and they share a kiss. The last scene shows her packing up her car and driving away.

Cast

  • Miley Cyrus
    Miley Cyrus
    Miley Ray Cyrus is an American actress and pop singer-songwriter. She achieved wide fame for her role as Miley Stewart/Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel sitcom Hannah Montana....

     as Veronica "Ronnie" L. Miller, an angry, rebellious eighteen year old forced to spend a summer with her estranged father.
  • Greg Kinnear
    Greg Kinnear
    Gregory "Greg" Kinnear is an American actor and television personality who first rose to stardom in 1991. He has appeared in more than 20 motion pictures, and was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in As Good as It Gets.-Early life:Kinnear was born in Logansport, Indiana, the son of...

     as Steve Miller, Ronnie and Jonah's father and former Juilliard School professor and concert pianist who moved to Georgia after his divorce. During the summer, Steve reconnects with Ronnie through their mutual love of music. With Jonah's help, Steve also works to reconstruct the centerpiece of the local church, a stained glass window, after the original was destroyed in a fire and dies.
  • Kelly Preston
    Kelly Preston
    Kelly Preston is an American actress and former model.- Early years :Preston was born Kelly Kamalelehua Smith in Honolulu, Hawaii. Her mother, Linda, was an administrator of a mental health center, and her father, who worked for an agricultural firm, drowned when Preston was three years old...

     as Kim, Ronnie and Jonah's mother who raised her children in New York City after her divorce.
  • Liam Hemsworth
    Liam Hemsworth
    Liam Hemsworth is an Australian actor. He took the role of Josh Taylor in the soap opera Neighbours and as "Marcus" on the children's television series The Elephant Princess and appeared in the American film The Last Song, released on 31 March 2010...

     as Will Blakelee, a popular and skilled beach volleyball
    Beach volleyball
    Beach volleyball, or sand volleyball, is an Olympic team sport played by two teams of two players on a sand court divided by a net.Like volleyball, the object of the game is to send the ball over the net in order to ground it on the opponent’s court, and to prevent the same effort by the opponent....

     player, Will aspires to attend a top university and volunteers at the Georgia Aquarium
    Georgia Aquarium
    The Georgia Aquarium, located in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, at Pemberton Place, is the world's largest aquarium with more than of marine and fresh water housing more than 120,000 animals of 500 different species...

    . He is Ronnie's love interest.
  • Bobby Coleman
    Bobby Coleman
    Robert Moorhouse "Bobby" Coleman III is an American child actor. He is best known for his roles in the films Martian Child, as the title character, and The Last Song.-Life and career:...

     as Jonah Miller, Ronnie's younger brother sent along with his elder sister to Tybee Island.
  • Nick Lashaway
    Nick Lashaway
    Nick Lashaway is an American actor. Recognized for his roles in The X-Files and The 40 Year Old Virgin, he has his appearance in The Last Song opposite Miley Cyrus, portraying the leader of a gang of thugs who hustle money from beach carnival crowds through spectacular fire juggling performances...

     as Marcus, Blaze's abusive boyfriend who breaks up with her because he wants Ronnie which lead him and Will to fight at Megan's wedding party and the leader of a gang of thugs who hustle money from beach carnival crowds through spectacular fire juggling
    Torch (juggling)
    Torches are juggling props used in many toss juggling routines. Juggling torches are essentially a club or stick on which the 'far' end is an attached wick.- Wicks :The two most common wicks used with juggling torches are:*Kevlar para-aramid*Cotton...

     performances.
  • Carly Chaikin
    Carly Chaikin
    Carly Chaikin is an American actress. She got her breakout role in the film The Last Song. She currently resides in Santa Monica, California, U.S.-Career:...

     as Blaze, a rebel who befriends Ronnie when she is sent to Georgia. Blaze betrays Ronnie when she frames Ronnie for shoplifting a watch.
  • Adam Barnett
    Robert Adam Barnett
    Adam Barnett is an American actor and entertainer. He plays the role of "Teddy" in the Disney/Touchstone motion picture The Last Song based on the Nicholas Sparks novel. The film stars Miley Cyrus, Greg Kinnear, Kelly Preston, Liam Hemsworth, and Nick Lashaway...

     as Teddy, a young thug adept at hacky sack
    Hacky Sack
    thumb|right|200px|A Hacky SackHacky Sack is the trademarked name of a type of footbag.-History:The name "hacky sack" came from the 1972 inventors of the Footbag, John Stalberger and Mike Marshall. Although Marshall suffered a fatal heart attack in 1975, Stalberger continued the business. At a...

     and juggling
    Juggling
    Juggling is a skill involving moving objects for entertainment or sport. The most recognizable form of juggling is toss juggling, in which the juggler throws objects up to catch and toss up again. This may be one object or many objects, at the same time with one or many hands. Jugglers often refer...

    , skills he uses as part of Marcus' crew to hustle money.
  • Nick Searcy
    Nick Searcy
    Nick Searcy is an American actor who currently portrays Chief DeputyUnited States Marshal Art Mullen on FX's Justified. He also had a major role in the Tom Hanks produced miniseries From the Earth to the Moon as Deke Slayton....

     as Tom Blakelee, Will's father.
  • Melissa Ordway
    Melissa Ordway
    Melissa Ordway is an American actress and model. She has modeled in many campaigns and acted in such films as 17 Again and on television in Privileged.-Background:...

     as Ashley, Will's ex-girlfriend.
  • Carrie Malabre as Cassie, Ashley's best friend who aids Ashley in antagonizing Ronnie.
  • Rhoda Griffis
    Rhoda Griffis
    Rhoda Griffis is an American actress, perhaps best known for playing supporting roles both in independent and mainstream films and television.- Life and career :...

     as a Doctor
  • Lance E. Nichols as Pastor Charlie Harris, the kind, devout Pastor of the local church. He was Steve's first piano teacher, parental figure, and best friend while Steve was growing up.
  • Hallock Beals as Scott, Will's jealous best friend who tries to create trouble between Will and Ronnie.
  • Stephanie Leigh Schlund as Megan Blakelee, Will's elder sister who is engaged to be married.

Development

The Last Song began when Disney executive Jason Reed met with Miley Cyrus to discuss her future career plans. At the time, Cyrus had been known mainly for starring as a pop star on Disney Channel's Hannah Montana
Hannah Montana
Hannah Montana is an American television series, which debuted on March 24, 2006 on the Disney Channel. The series focuses on a girl who lives a double life as an average teenage school girl named Miley Stewart by day and a famous pop singer named Hannah Montana by night, concealing her real...

, a children's television series that had expanded into a globally successful media franchise. As the series neared its end, Disney hoped to create a star vehicle to help Cyrus break out
Breakthrough role
A Breakthrough role, also known as Breakout role , is a term in the film industry to describe the film of an actor or actress which contributed significantly to the development of their career. It may not always refer to a film debut but a film which may have had some mainstream success that...

 of the pop persona she had developed through the franchise and to introduce Cyrus to older audiences. During her meeting with Reed, Cyrus expressed a desire to film a movie similar to A Walk to Remember, a 2002 film based on a novel
A Walk to Remember (novel)
A Walk to Remember is a novel by American writer Nicholas Sparks, released in October 1999. The novel, set in the mid-1950s in Beaufort, North Carolina, is a story of two teenagers who fall in love with each other despite the disparity of their personalities...

 by Nicholas Sparks. A Walk to Remember helped Mandy Moore
Mandy Moore
Amanda Leigh "Mandy" Moore is an American singer-songwriter, actress and fashion designer. Moore became famous as a teenager in the late 1990s, after the release of her teen pop albums So Real, I Wanna Be with You, and Mandy Moore. In 2007, she took an adult pop-folk direction with the release of...

, then a teen pop star much like Cyrus, launch an acting career. Disney called Adam Shankman
Adam Shankman
Adam Michael Shankman is an American film director, producer, dancer, actor, and choreographer. He has been a judge on the television program So You Think You Can Dance since Season 3. He began his professional career in musical theater, and was a dancer in music videos for Paula Abdul and Janet...

, director of A Walk to Remember, who signed on to produce the potential Cyrus film along with his sister and Offspring Entertainment production company partner, Jennifer Gibgot. Tish Cyrus, Cyrus' mother and co-manager, became the film's Executive producer. Cyrus' acting representation, United Talent Agency, then contacted Sparks, also a UTA client, to ask if he had plans for a novel appropriate for a film adaptation starring Cyrus.

At the time, Sparks had been wrapping up The Lucky One
The Lucky One (novel)
The Lucky One is a novel by American writer Nicholas Sparks, released on September 30, 2008. The story revolves around a US Marine named Logan Thibault who finds a photograph of a smiling young woman half-buried in the sands of Iraq during his third tour of duty...

and beginning to ponder an original plot for his next book. The author told himself he could "either go younger than 20 or older than 50", having recently written about every age in between. Wary of venturing above 50 again after his memorable hit The Notebook
The Notebook
The Notebook is a 1996 romantic novel by American novelist Nicholas Sparks, based on a true story. The novel was later adapted into a popular romance film by the same name in 2004.-Background:...

, Sparks had already been leaning toward writing a teenage story when he received a phone call from Gibgot on behalf of the film in August 2008. Sparks recalled, "Jennifer asked if I had anything laying around? I said no, but funny you should say that…" Sparks returned with a premise by the end of July 2008. Once the proposal had been agreed upon by Cyrus, her family, and Offspring Entertainment, Sparks, with the aid of co-screenplay writer Jeff Van Wie, completed the screenplay before starting the book. Sparks explained that such an arrangement was necessary in order to accommodate filming in summer 2009, as Disney had scheduled, but that "this is similar to the way it’s gone with movies based on my novels; it’s just out of order." Sparks and Van Wie completed the first draft of the screenplay in December 2008, the first rewrite later that month, and the second and final rewrite in January 2009. Both rewrites took approximately one or two days, and Sparks found them relatively simple. The finished screenplay was approximately 100 pages long. While The Last Song is not the first screenplay Sparks has written, it is his first to be optioned for film. The novel was completed in June 2009, the same time shooting for the film began, and was published on September 8, 2009 by Grand Central Publishing. The plot of the film and novel remained secret throughout development.
Julie Anne Robinson signed on to direct the film in May 2009, attracted by the emotion present in the story. The Last Song is Robinson's first feature film, although she is a veteran of television and theater. Robinson previously helmed episodes of American series such as Weeds
Weeds (TV series)
Weeds is an American television comedy created by Jenji Kohan and produced by Tilted Productions in association with Lionsgate Television. The central character is Nancy Botwin , a widowed mother of two boys who begins selling marijuana to support her family after her husband dies suddenly of a...

and Grey's Anatomy
Grey's Anatomy
Grey's Anatomy is an American medical drama television series created by Shonda Rhimes. The series premiered on March 27, 2005 on ABC; since then, seven seasons have aired. The series follows the lives of interns, residents and their mentors in the fictional Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital in...

and earned a Golden Globe nomination and a BAFTA award for her work on the BBC series Viva Blackpool.

In a June 2009 blog entry, Cyrus said she had "always been a fan of Nicholas Sparks" and that she had been waiting to do a production separate from the Hannah Montana franchise "for a long time", but had not found the time to do so due to her TV show, music
Miley Cyrus discography
The discography of American recording artist Miley Cyrus consists of three studio albums, three live albums, two compilation albums, two remix albums, five soundtrack albums, one extended play , eighteen singles, ten promotional singles, two video albums, and eleven music videos...

, tours, and Hannah Montana: The Movie
Hannah Montana: The Movie
Hannah Montana: The Movie is a 2009 Walt Disney Pictures musical comedy film based on the Disney Channel show Hannah Montana which was released on April 10, 2009, by Walt Disney Pictures, it was the second Disney Channel series to have a movie for Walt Disney Pictures. The film was directed by...

. In order to film The Last Song, Cyrus' contract for season four of Hannah Montana included an extra long hiatus.

Writing and title

Recognizing the popularity of A Walk to Remember as both a novel and film, Sparks "put all [his] thoughts into that, trying to make the story as different from A Walk to Remember as [he could], but try to capture the same feelings." Sparks' experiences as a father and as a high school track and field
Track and field
Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area...

 coach also helped shape the plot, and characters Jonah Miller and Will Blakelee are respectively based on Sparks' sons Landon and Miles. Sparks felt Ronnie was the hardest character to write for because he had "never been a 17-year-old, angry teenage girl". Ronnie became a composite character
Composite character
A composite character is a character composed of two or more individuals, appearing in a fictional or non-fictional work. Two fictional characters are often combined into one upon adaptation of a work from one medium to another, as in the film adaptation of a novel...

 inspired by several young women Sparks has known, such as his nieces. Cyrus herself influenced Ronnie fairly little, although her singing career did inspire the musical elements of the story. Ronnie plays only the piano and Cyrus only sing a small amount in the film, though she does contribute to its soundtrack.

Disney did not give Sparks limitations on the topics featured in The Last Song, which include underage drinking, infidelity, and terminal illness but Sparks says that Disney desired to work with him in part because "they’ve read my novels. My teenagers… don't do bad things. I just don’t write that. I don’t write about adultery, I don’t write profanity ... I’ll certainly have love scenes in my novels, but they’re always between consenting adults.” Still, Sparks acknowledges that elements of the screenplay may have been toned down by the director or the studio after he finished. As dictated by the Writers Guild of America
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....

, Sparks receives full credit for his work although the amount of his original screenplay retained in the film is uncertain. For example, Sparks says the character of Marcus, leader of the gang of thugs, was likely altered for the film.
The project remained nameless for several months after Sparks' initial meeting with Disney in July 2008. Sparks wrote in a September 2008 online chat that "I have the idea completed, but no title. That's common for me though. Titles come last." The film was referred to by the working title
Working title
A working title, sometimes called a production title, is the temporary name of a product or project used during its development, usually used in filmmaking, television production, novel, video game, or music album.-Purpose:...

 "Untitled Miley Cyrus Project" In March 2009, Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

magazine called "The Last Song" a "tentative" title.

Casting

Cyrus chose the name "Ronnie" for her character in honor of her grandfather, Ron Cyrus
Ron Cyrus
Ronald Ray "Ron" Cyrus was a Democrat politician and public servant in Greenup County, Kentucky. He was the father of American country music singer/actor Billy Ray Cyrus and the grandfather of Christopher Cyrus, Miley Cyrus, Braison Cyrus and Noah Cyrus.- Early life :Cyrus was born in Flatwoods,...

, who died in 2006. Unknown to many the character had first been named "Kirby
Kirby (given name)
Kirby is a given name, and may refer to:* Kirby Ian Andersen, Canadian musician* Kirby Chambliss , American pilot* Kirby Congdon, poet* Kirby Dick, American filmmaker* Kirby Doyle , American poet...

" by Sparks and later changed to "Hilary".
New interviews with Sparks reveal he imagined Cyrus in the role "only a little" during the writing process.
The completion of the screenplay, concerned Sparks that Cyrus would not be able to successfully execute the role: "The first thing I thought when I finished the screenplay was, wow, I hope she can do this, this is a tough role because I'm bringing you through a whole gamut of emotion and you're just a 16-year-old girl who's done the Disney Channel. Are you able to do this as an actress?", After visiting the set and watching Cyrus film, Sparks' worries abated. To play the New York teen, Cyrus worked with a dialect coach
Dialect coach
A dialect coach assists an actor in assuming a certain regional or foreign accent to perform convincingly in radio, theatrical or film productions. Dialect coaches are skilled in pronunciation and phonetics , and do not necessarily have to have the accent that they are teaching, though it may be...

 to lose her Southern accent
Southern American English
Southern American English is a group of dialects of the English language spoken throughout the Southern region of the United States, from Southern and Eastern Maryland, West Virginia and Kentucky to the Gulf Coast, and from the Atlantic coast to most of Texas and Oklahoma.The Southern dialects make...

 and learned to play classical piano. After she completed filming, Cyrus said that in a case of life imitating art
Life imitating art
-The Philosophical Position:Anti-mimesis is a philosophical position that holds the direct opposite of mimesis. Its most notable proponent is Oscar Wilde, who held in his 1889 essay The Decay of Lying that "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life"...

, she had matured and "changed a lot" over the course of her summer in Georgia, similar to the way Ronnie does in the film. "Showing this movie, I feel like I'm really showing a part of my growth as a person as well. So I'm really excited for people to see it."

In April 2009, Disney officials chose Rafi Gavron
Rafi Gavron
Raphael Pichey "Rafi" Gavron is a British actor, known for his roles in the Anthony Minghella romantic-drama film Breaking and Entering , and the 2008 movies Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and the fantasy Inkheart....

 for the part of Will Blakelee, but switched to Australian actor Liam Hemsworth by May. On May 18, 2009, the decision to cast Greg Kinnear as Steve Miller was made final. Kelly Preston's part as Kim is the first role she has accepted since the death of her son, Jett Travolta. After being introduced to Cal Johnson
Cal Johnson
Calvin Joseph Johnson is an American film stuntman and stunt coordinator and film actor, who has been a stunt double for many of Hollywood's A-list actors.-Early life:...

, the film's stunt coordinator
Stunt coordinator
A stunt coordinator, usually an experienced stunt performer, is hired by a TV, film or theatre director or production company to arrange the casting and performance of stunts for a film, television programme or a live audience...

, Adam Barnett landed the role of Teddy in May 2009 due to his pre-developed talent in juggling and hackey sack.

Move to Georgia

The Last Song had originally been set in Wrightsville Beach
Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina
Wrightsville Beach is a town in New Hanover County, North Carolina, United States. Wrightsville Beach is just east of Wilmington and is part of the Wilmington Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,593 at the 2000 census...

 and Wilmington
Wilmington, North Carolina
Wilmington is a port city in and is the county seat of New Hanover County, North Carolina, United States. The population is 106,476 according to the 2010 Census, making it the eighth most populous city in the state of North Carolina...

 in North Carolina. Though they wished to shoot on location, filmmakers also examined three other states and identified Georgia as the next best filming site.
Georgia’s housing prices were higher, but the state’s filming incentive package refunded 30% of production costs such as gasoline, pencils, and salaries. North Carolina’s package refunded 15% and excluded salaries of over $1 million. Still, Disney remained interested in North Carolina and offered to film there if the state would cut the amount the company would save in Georgia, approximately $1 million, in half. North Carolina officials searched for ways to accomplish this, including applying unsuccessfully for state and Golden LEAF Foundation
Golden LEAF Foundation
The Golden LEAF Foundation is a nonprofit corporation based in Rocky Mount, North Carolina in the United States, that was created in 1999 to receive half of the funds coming to North Carolina from the master settlement agreement with cigarette manufacturers. The foundation is now devoted to...

 grants. They also introduced legislation to improve the state’s refund to 25%, which eventually passed on August 27, 2009. Disney decided to work within existing incentive laws and agreed to film in North Carolina as long as the film rights they had bought from Sparks counted as a production cost, thereby saving the company an additional $125,000 to $225,000. North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue
Bev Perdue
Beverly Eaves "Bev" Perdue is an American politician and member of the Democratic Party currently serving as the 73rd Governor of the U.S. state of North Carolina. She is the first female governor of North Carolina....

 set up a press conference on April 1, 2009 to announce N.C.’s victory. North Carolina tax collector
Tax collector
A tax collector is a person who collects unpaid taxes from other people or corporations. Tax collectors are often portrayed in fiction as being evil, and in the modern world share a somewhat similar stereotype to that of lawyers....

s refused to consider the film rights, forcing Perdue to cancel the conference at the last second. "I was hopeful to say that it was coming and now I don't know that I'll get to say that," Perdue said. "Nobody knows what's going to happen [...] I don't know what figures they got from Georgia, but Georgia wants them badly, and we want them badly, and by Monday [April 6, 2009], there'll be four or five other states that want them badly." Johnny Griffin, director of the Wilmington Regional Film Commission, explains: "Disney makes feature films. They also make television series; they make individual movies for the Disney Channel. By losing this one project, in essence, we've lost all of those opportunities.” He also notes the loss of jobs and tourism filming would have created.

On April 9, 2009, after three months of deliberation, the decision to move to Georgia was made final. To determine the specific town, location scouts scoured the state for an aged, isolated, oceanfront property to use as the Miller family’s home in the film. After another three months and the discovery of the "Adams Cottage" on the southern tip of Tybee Island, Tybee and neighboring locations became the sites of filming in late March, with the intention of masquerading the area as Wilmington and Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina., The locale proved too unique to disguise. “We had a hard time trying to hide the fact that this was Tybee and Savannah was Savannah," said Bass Hampton, the film's location director. Filmmakers convinced the screenwriters to change the setting of the film and to Tybee Island, thus allowing them to incorporate landmarks such as the Tybee Island Light Station
Tybee Island Light Station
The Tybee Island Light, also known simply as the Tybee Lighthouse is located on Tybee Island, Georgia, east of Savannah at the mouth of the Savannah River...

 and the Savannah Historic District
Savannah Historic District
The Savannah Historic District is a large urban U.S. historic district that roughly corresponds to the city limits of Savannah, Georgia, prior to the American Civil War....

. The setting of Sparks' novel remained in North Carolina. Though other movies have been filmed in Tybee Island, The Last Song is the first to actually be set in Tybee. With the city’s name plastered on everything from police cars to businesses, Georgia officials predict a lasting effect on the economy. In addition, The Last Song is estimated to have brought up to 500 summer jobs to Georgia, $8 million to local businesses, and $17.5 million to state businesses.

Sets

Nelson Coates
Nelson Coates
Nelson Coates is an American production designer and set designer for film, television, and theater. He was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1994 for his art direction of the miniseries The Stand, for which he designed all 225 sets. Coates is a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and...

 is the production designer for The Last Song, responsible for all visual aspects of the movie. Coates, who was nominated for an Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

 for his work on the Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...

 television miniseries The Stand
The Stand (TV miniseries)
# Project Blue [1:33]# The Dream Begins [2:08]# On the Road to Kansas [3:57]# The Trashmen in Vegas [1:58]# Headin' West [1:56]# Larry & Nadine [2:38]# Mother Abigail [3:10]# 'Sorry Mister, I Don't Understand' [2:54]# Mid Country [3:22]...

, arrived 11 weeks prior to the start of filming to do prep work. While most of the filming took place on the natural Tybee Island beach or on pre-constructed private property, Coates oversaw the re-painting of the pier and the construction of the carnival and church.

Location scouts had searched the entirety of Georgia for an aged, isolated oceanfront property to use as a home for the Millers for nearly three months before scout Andy Young came across the "Adams Cottage" on the southern end of Tybee Island. "It was getting down to zero hour," said Young. "Often, it's about the house. It can be a character itself in the movie." The house's owner, Sam Adams, welcomed filming as "an opportunity to sort of immortalize the house," in case it is destroyed by storms. The two-story, six bedroom house was built by Adams' great-grandfather in 1918 and was made entirely out of hard pine wood with very few painted surfaces. According to Savannah Morning News
Savannah Morning News
The Savannah Morning News is a daily newspaper in Savannah, Georgia. It is published by Morris Communications, Inc. The motto of the paper is "Light of the Coastal Empire and Lowcountry"...

reporter Lesley Conn, it "was built in classic rambling beach style [... designed] to allow ocean breezes to sweep through wide, wraparound porches into cool, heart-pine rooms."

The church set was built over a six week period in a vacant lot on the corner of 13th Street and Sixth Avenue, near residential homes. The one-room, 2000 square feet (185.8 m²) building seats approximately 80 people and is estimated to be worth $250,000 to $350,000. Special-effects coordinator Will Purcell subdued concerns about the church burning scene by stating that the building would not actually be set on fire. The intended menacing effect is "all camera angles. It is a safe environment for actors to do their work." Several techniques were used to simulate the fire, including the use of propane
Propane
Propane is a three-carbon alkane with the molecular formula , normally a gas, but compressible to a transportable liquid. A by-product of natural gas processing and petroleum refining, it is commonly used as a fuel for engines, oxy-gas torches, barbecues, portable stoves, and residential central...

 pipes to shoot flames through the church windows. At the end of filming, Cyrus hoped to fly the church set back to her family's estate in Tennessee. Disney agreed to donate the building to the island after Tybee officials lobbied to keep it, with the condition that its connection to The Last Song not be advertised. The set will be moved to a new location and brought up to code for use as a non-denominational chapel for island weddings; renovations are expected to cost approximately $600,000.

Shooting schedule

Cyrus' busy schedule necessitated that filming take place over the summer. Sparks noted, "She’s got a fall music tour
Wonder World Tour
The Wonder World Tour is the second concert tour by American recording artist Miley Cyrus. The tour was held to promote her second studio album Breakout and first extended play The Time of Our Lives...

 and then she’s back filming Hannah Montana in the spring again. So the only time she had free in her schedule was over the summer."
Principal photography
Principal photography
thumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....

 began on June 15, 2009 and finished on August 18, 2009. Filming did not take place during weekends.

On the first day of production, Cyrus and Hemsworth filmed a kiss in the ocean. Other scenes which took place in June included the carnival and volleyball tournament, both of which were filmed on the beach near the Tybee Island pier. Filming at the pier wrapped up on June 23, 2009 after shooting the scene in which Kim drops off Ronnie and Jonah to live with Steve. Scenes of the church fire were shot on July 10, 2009. Filming at the Georgia Tech Savannah
Georgia Tech Savannah
Georgia Tech Savannah is a satellite campus of the Atlanta-based Georgia Institute of Technology. It is located in Savannah, Georgia, near Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport. The Savannah campus offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in four engineering majors: Civil, Computer,...

 campus began on July 16. Kinnear finished taping on July 17, 2009. Wedding scenes and a key driving scene were filmed at the Wormsloe Historic Site
Wormsloe Historic Site
The Wormsloe Historic Site is a state historic site near Savannah, Georgia, in the southeastern United States. The site consists of protecting part of what was once the Wormsloe Plantation, a large estate established by one of Georgia's colonial founders, Noble Jones...

 between July 20 and July 23 for twelve hours each day. Driving scenes in Isle of Hope, Georgia
Isle of Hope, Georgia
Isle of Hope is a census-designated place in Chatham County, Georgia, United States. It is part of the Savannah Metropolitan Statistical Area, and at the 2010 census, its population was 2,402...

 continued to the 28. By July 30, the movie had returned to Tybee Island for more beach scenes. Chaikin's character framed Cyrus' for stealing a watch on August 6. On August 10, Hemsworth performed an oil change and Cyrus browsed an upscale boutique in downtown Savannah for the movie. The funeral was filmed from August 11, 2009 to August 13, 2009 at the church set in Tybee Island. On August 15, further church burning scenes took place. The wrap party was held on the 16, and the cast and crew arrived in Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...

 the following day to spend the last days of filming at the Georgia Aquarium. After analyzing the area on the 17th, the movie began shooting in public areas at dawn on the 18th to avoid crowds. Once the aquarium opened to the public at 10:00, filming shifted to behind-the-scenes areas.

Loggerhead sea turtles

Due to the conflicting personalities of his protagonist couple, Sparks faced difficulty in finding a vehicle that would draw Will and Ronnie to spend time together. “It had to be during the summer, she [Ronnie] had to be new in town, and whatever happened had to start in June and end in August. Because you always want a conclusion,” said Sparks of his requirements. He mentioned summer camp or a summer job as typical vehicles used in books, but dismissed them as unoriginal and boring. “So it’s got to be original, it’s got to be interesting, and at the same time it’s got to be universal, that you feel like it could happen to anybody.” Sparks eventually chose to have Will and Ronnie bond over a loggerhead sea turtle nest, knowing that Loggerhead eggs often hatch in August. The scene of the hatching nest took place during the first week of August and involved 26 live loggerhead sea turtle hatchlings. Sea turtle hatchlings have an innate sense to head toward the ocean water as soon as they are born, so scenes of the nest hatching had to be taken swiftly. Said Mike Dodd of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources
Georgia Department of Natural Resources
The Georgia Department of Natural Resources is an administrative agency of the U.S. state of Georgia. The agency has statewide responsibilities for managing and conserving Georgia’s natural, cultural, and historical resources, and is divided into six divisions:...

, the biologist who supervised the scene, the hatchlings "did all they know how to do: They crawled down to the water and swam off." Sparks told an interviewer he suspected filmmakers would digitally add more turtles to the scene. At the time of filming, the loggerhead sea turtle was listed as a threatened species
Threatened species
Threatened species are any speciesg animals, plants, fungi, etc.) which are vulnerable to endangerment in the near future.The World Conservation Union is the foremost authority on threatened species, and treats threatened species not as a single category, but as a group of three categories,...

. The environmentally friendly theme was an added bonus to Tybee Island, which was then promoting ecotourism
Ecotourism
Ecotourism is a form of tourism visiting fragile, pristine, and usually protected areas, intended as a low impact and often small scale alternative to standard commercial tourism...

.

Post-production

The Last Song entered post-production
Post-production
Post-production is part of filmmaking and the video production process. It occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, advertising, audio recordings, photography, and digital art...

 following the end of filming on August 18, 2009. Automated dialogue replacement took place in mid-September; Beals and Chaikin stated they had gone in to record on September 11 and September 18 respectively. Chaikin said she had worked for five and a half hours. The director's cut
Director's cut
A director's cut is a specially edited version of a film, and less often TV series, music video, commercials, comic book or video games, that is supposed to represent the director's own approved edit...

 was presented to the studio on October 1, 2009. The Motion Picture Association of America
Motion Picture Association of America
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America , was founded in 1922 and is designed to advance the business interests of its members...

 reviewed the film and issued it a PG rating for "thematic material, some violence, sensuality and mild language" three weeks later.

Score and soundtrack

"When I Look at You
When I Look at You
"When I Look at You" is a power ballad performed by American recording artist and actress Miley Cyrus. The song was written by John Shanks and Hillary Lindsey and produced by Shanks. It was released on March 1, 2010 by Hollywood Records as the second and final single from Cyrus's first extended...

", song by Miley Cyrus, was originally from her EP The Time of Our Lives released August 31, 2009, but was included on the soundtrack because it fit the movie well. The song is used in the background of the film's trailer.

At the launch of his album Cradlesong
Cradlesong
Cradlesong is the second solo studio album by the Matchbox Twenty lead-singer Rob Thomas, released on June 30, 2009 by Atlantic Records. The album's first single "Her Diamonds" was a success around the world, while reaching number three in Australia and topping the Billboard Hot Adult Top 40 Tracks...

on June 30, 2009, Rob Thomas
Rob Thomas (musician)
Robert Kelly "Rob" Thomas is an American rock recording artist and songwriter. He is the primary songwriter and lead singer of the band Matchbox Twenty. Thomas also records and performs as a solo artist...

 told the New York Daily News, "My buddy Adam Shankman, who just directed Miley's movie, called me on the phone the other day and was like, 'You have to write a song for this movie.'... I would definitely write a song for her [Cyrus]." In the end, however, Thomas was unable to contribute music to The Last Song
The Last Song
UK limited edition 7" green vinyl* Side A: "The Last Song" * Side B: "Time Stands Still" -Composition:According to lead singer Tyson Ritter in a 2003 interview with MTV about the new single, he said the song came to being after he "got inspired to write something that wasn't about an all-girl...

, citing "scheduling problems" as the reason.

The soundtrack features a track by Casey McPherson
Casey McPherson
Casey McPherson is a singer/songwriter based in Austin, Texas. He is currently the frontman of the band Alpha Rev and formerly sang in the band Endochine...

, frontman of the band Alpha Rev
Alpha Rev
Alpha Rev is an American alternative rock band from Austin, Texas, fronted by Casey McPherson .-History:Casey McPherson started Alpha Rev in 2005 after the breakup of his previous band Endochine, which had toured with Staind, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pete Yorn and Bob Schneider.Alpha Rev released...

 which signed with Disney's Hollywood Records
Hollywood Records
Hollywood Records is an American record label owned by Disney Music Group, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company.-History:Hollywood Records was founded in 1989 by then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner with the idea of expanding the music operations of the company and to develop and promote...

 in August 2008. Variety magazine's Anthony D'Alessandro notes that the use of soundtracks as "launch pads" for new Disney artists is a common practice. "A Different Side of Me" by Allstar Weekend
Allstar Weekend
Allstar Weekend is a pop rock band based in Poway, California. The band gained its popularity from the Disney Channel television network. The band originally consisted of lead singer Zach Porter, bassist Cameron Quiseng, guitarist Nathan Darmody, and drummer Michael Martinez but as of September 16,...

 was also included on the soundtrack. They are a group newly signed to Hollywood Records after winning the N.B.T. Competition through the Disney Channel. The soundtrack was released in the U.S. on March 23, 2010.
Though not featured on soundtrack, Snow Patrol
Snow Patrol
Snow Patrol are an alternative rock band from Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland. Formed at the University of Dundee in 1994 as an indie rock band, the band is now based in Glasgow...

's 2006 single "Shut Your Eyes
Shut Your Eyes
"Shut Your Eyes" is a song by the UK band Snow Patrol. Initially a track on their 2006 album Eyes Open, it was released as a single in several countries in 2007....

" and Feist's "I Feel It All" also appear in the film . The soundtrack had a major increase in sales in the week of the DVD release. The soundtrack peaked at #104 on the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...

 albums chart.

Track listing

Charts

Charts (2010) Peak
position
Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...

80

Singles

  • "When I Look at You
    When I Look at You
    "When I Look at You" is a power ballad performed by American recording artist and actress Miley Cyrus. The song was written by John Shanks and Hillary Lindsey and produced by Shanks. It was released on March 1, 2010 by Hollywood Records as the second and final single from Cyrus's first extended...

    " was released as the lead single from the soundtrack on February 16, 2010. It has peaked at #16 on the US Hot 100 and #24 on the Canadian Hot 100.
  • "I Hope You Find It" is a track from the album. It received a large amount of digital downloads after the album was made available for online purchase. It debuted at #8 on Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles
    Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles
    The Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States. It lists the top 25 singles below number 100 that have not yet charted on the Billboard Hot 100. Sometimes, however, singles halt their progress on this chart, and never appear on the Hot 100...

     (Hot 100
    Billboard Hot 100
    The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

     – #108) chart in the week ending April 10, 2010 and peaked at #5 a week later (Hot 100 – #105) before it dropped out in the week ending April 24, 2010.

Release

Marketing

Upon the release of the novel on September 8, Sparks began a book tour reaching around 13 cities and gave several interviews. During these events, he discussed writing both the novel and the screenplay. Cyrus and Walt Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook
Dick Cook
Richard W. "Dick" Cook is the former Chairman of the Walt Disney Studios. At the time of his separation from the company, he was the only remaining top Disney executive who had worked for the company since before Michael Eisner took charge in 1984...

 discussed the film on September 11, 2009 at the first D23 Expo. The first clips from the film appeared online on September 11, 2009, interspersed within one version of the "When I Look at You" music video. The film's first trailer was integrated into Cyrus' Wonder World Tour and premiered during the tour's opening night on September 14, 2009 in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

. Midway through each concert, the trailer was shown on large video screens surrounding the stage. After it finished, Cyrus played a white piano and sang "When I Look at You" while film clips continued to play on the screens behind her. On November 16, 2009, the first three film stills were released via the film's Facebook page. The following day, the film's trailer premiered online. The film's premiere
Premiere
A premiere is generally "a first performance". This can refer to plays, films, television programs, operas, symphonies, ballets and so on. Premieres for theatrical, musical and other cultural presentations can become extravagant affairs, attracting large numbers of socialites and much media...

 was held in Los Angeles on March 25, 2010.
Cyrus was originally planned to go to the UK premiere of the film, but due to the April 14, 2010 eruption of the volcano Eyjafjallajökull that blanketed Europe in volcanic ash and grounded all flights to and from the continent, she was unable to attend.

Box office

The Last Song was released on Wednesday, March 31, 2010. The film performed well for a Wednesday release, garnering $5,125,103 on approximately 3,300 screens at 2,673 theaters, for an average of $1,917 per theater, and topping the daily box office. It placed fourth at the weekend box office, making $16,203,000. Over the course of its five day opening, the film earned $25,590,000. As of July 15, 2010 the film had made $89,041,656 worldwide.

Blu-ray and DVD

The Last Song was released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 and Blu-ray
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...

 on August 17, 2010, and on 6 September 2010 in the UK. It was released in Australia on August 4.
As of February 4, 2011, The Last Song DVD has sold 1,584,502 copies in the US, making $29,016,169. More than the 20 million budget.

Critical reception

The Last Song received negative reviews from critics. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

, gives the film an average of 4/10 and a rating of 19% based on 109 reviews. Selected top critics gave the film a rating of 15% based on 23 reviews. The critical consensus is summarized: "As shamelessly manipulative as any Nicholas Sparks production, The Last Song is done no favors by its miscast and over matched star, Miley Cyrus."
Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...

, which assigns normalized ratings to films, The Last Song holds a "generally unfavorable" score of 33% based on 27 reviews.

Reviewers were critical of Sparks' and Van Wie's screenplay and formulaic storyline. Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle is an American Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] [[film reviewer] and the author of two books on pre-[[Motion Picture Production Code|Hays Code]] Hollywood...

 of the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...

says the screenplay's faults include several "scenes that make no emotional sense" and claims, "The plot construction is weak. Incidents don't flow one into the next." When reviewing Cyrus's performance, critics acknowledged her stage presence, but were frequently critical of her acting abilities. Jay Stone of The Ottawa Citizen says Cyrus's portrayal of angry Ronnie "consist[s] of pouting and sneering [...] Cyrus doesn't have a lot of range, but she does have presence."
Rob Nelson of Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

writes, "Cyrus, alas, hasn't yet learned not to act [...] But she does show off her considerable chops as a pianist and remains reasonably likable throughout." A. O. Scott
A. O. Scott
Anthony Oliver Scott, known as A. O. Scott , is an American journalist and critic. He is a chief film critic for The New York Times, along with Manohla Dargis.-Background and education:...

 of The New York Times believes that although "her Hannah Montana persona has a certain aggressive charm", in The Last Song she "play-act[s] rather than exploring the motives and feelings of her character."
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

 gave the film a mixed 2.5/4. He praised the acting and directing, but derided the plot and Sparks's writing.

Kinnear's performance has been widely praised. A. O. Scott
A. O. Scott
Anthony Oliver Scott, known as A. O. Scott , is an American journalist and critic. He is a chief film critic for The New York Times, along with Manohla Dargis.-Background and education:...

 writes, "it’s nice to see Mr. Kinnear play an entirely sympathetic character for a change [but] his slyness and subtlety seem wasted in a project that has no interest in either." Michael Phillips
Michael Phillips (critic)
Michael Phillips is a film critic for the Chicago Tribune newspaper. Previously he was the drama critic of the Tribune; the Los Angeles Times; the St. Paul Pioneer Press; the San Diego Union-Tribune; and the Dallas Times Herald....

 of The Chicago Tribune writes, "Reliably honest and affecting, [Kinnear] fights off the waves of corn in much the same way that Tibetan monk defied the tsunami in 2012
2012 (film)
2012 is a 2009 American disaster film directed by Roland Emmerich. It stars John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton, Danny Glover, and Woody Harrelson. It was produced by Emmerich's production company, Centropolis Entertainment and was distributed by Columbia Pictures...

."
Glen Whipp of the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

writes, "Kinnear lends the movie a dignity it doesn't deserve". Stone advises, "I'd watch out for Liam Hemsworth".
Stephen Witty of The Star-Ledger
The Star-Ledger
The Star-Ledger is the largest circulated newspaper in the U.S. state of New Jersey and is based in Newark. It is a sister paper to The Jersey Journal of Jersey City, The Times of Trenton and the Staten Island Advance, all of which are owned by Advance Publications.The Newark Star-Ledgers daily...

commends "newcomer Carly Chaikin [who] plays the "bad girl" [...] with an exciting mixture of wildness and vulnerability. Halfway in, I began wishing desperately that Chaikin was playing the lead."
Reception for Coleman was mixed; Jeff Vice of "Deseret News" calls him a "hammy irritant" while Jon Bream of the Star Tribune
Star Tribune
The Star Tribune is the largest newspaper in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is published seven days each week in an edition for the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area. A statewide version is also available across Minnesota and parts of Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota, and North Dakota. The...

writes, "The most memorable acting is by Coleman, 12 [... who] gets a lot of great lines and delivers them with aplomb".
Despite the negative reviews from critics, the movie was well received from fans and audiences with a 66% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes and with an average of a 7/10.

Awards

Year Award Category Recipient Result
2010 Teen Choice Awards
Teen Choice Awards
The Teen Choice Awards, are an annual awards show that air on the Fox cable channel, that honor the year's biggest biggest achievements in music, movies, sports, television, fashion and more, voted by teen viewers aged 14 through 17. Winners receive an authentic full size surfboard designed with...

Choice Movie: Drama The Last Song cast and crew
Choice Movie Actress: Drama Miley Cyrus
Miley Cyrus
Miley Ray Cyrus is an American actress and pop singer-songwriter. She achieved wide fame for her role as Miley Stewart/Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel sitcom Hannah Montana....

Choice Movie Breakout Star: Male Liam Hemsworth
Liam Hemsworth
Liam Hemsworth is an Australian actor. He took the role of Josh Taylor in the soap opera Neighbours and as "Marcus" on the children's television series The Elephant Princess and appeared in the American film The Last Song, released on 31 March 2010...

Choice Movie: Liplock Miley Cyrus & Liam Hemsworth
Choice Movie: Chemistry Miley Cyrus & Liam Hemsworth
Choice Movie: Dance Scene Miley Cyrus & Liam Hemsworth
Choice Movie: Hissy Fit Miley Cyrus
Choice Music: Love Song When I Look At You
When I Look at You
"When I Look at You" is a power ballad performed by American recording artist and actress Miley Cyrus. The song was written by John Shanks and Hillary Lindsey and produced by Shanks. It was released on March 1, 2010 by Hollywood Records as the second and final single from Cyrus's first extended...

Nickelodeon Australian Kids' Choice Awards 2010
Nickelodeon Australian Kids' Choice Awards 2010
The 8th annual Nickelodeon Australian Kids' Choice Awards was held on Friday 8 October 2010 at the Sydney Entertainment Centre. Nomination entries closed on 1 August 2010 and the nominees for this year's season, were revealed on 15 August 2010...

Choice Movie: Fave kiss Miley Cyrus & Liam Hemsworth
J-14 Teen Icon Awards 2010 Iconic Movie Actress Miley Cyrus
Miley Cyrus
Miley Ray Cyrus is an American actress and pop singer-songwriter. She achieved wide fame for her role as Miley Stewart/Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel sitcom Hannah Montana....

Iconic Movie The Last Song cast and crew
Razzie Awards
Golden Raspberry Awards
A Golden Raspberry Award, or Razzie for short, is an award presented in recognition of the worst in movies. Founded by American copywriter and publicist John J.B. Wilson in 1981, the annual Razzie Awards ceremony in Los Angeles precedes the corresponding Academy Awards ceremony by one day...

Worst Actress Miley Cyrus
2011 Kid's Choice Awards Favorite Movie Actress Miley Cyrus
Youth Rock Awards Rockin' Actor (Film) Liam Hemsworth

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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