Ashley Tisdale Fights Aliens Who Come 'FROM UPSTAIRS'
The High School Musical star will invade cinemas for the first time with the sci-fi action comedy, They Came From Upstairs.
Blonde starlet Ashley Tisdale (High School Musical) will make her feature film debut as an alien-battling teen in 20th Century Fox's sci-fi comedy They Came From Upstairs, announced The Hollywood Reporter's BORIS KIT.
Tisdale will be joined by Robert Hoffman (Step Up 2 the Streets), Carter Jenkins (Viva Laughlin), Ashley Boettcher (Prison Break) and Austin Butler (Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide).
They Came From Upstairs, scripted by Mark Burton (Madagascar) and Adam F. Goldberg (Fanboys), centers on a group of teens defending their Maine vacation home from aliens who invade through...you guessed it.
"How the title spells out the plot is icing on the proverbial adventure comedy cake," quipped iF Magazine's JAY FRASCO. "No, the aliens didn't come from the basement or the chimney...not even through the back door...THEY CAME FROM UPSTAIRS. Which lucky actor gets to utter the line is anyone's guess, though I'd put my money on Tisdale (just a hunch)."
Barry Josephson (Enchanted) is producing the film to be directed by John Schultz, who is, according to JEREMY SMITH at CHUD, "the man responsible for Like Mike, Drive Me Crazy and The Honeymooners remake, so I'd like to dismiss it outright. But the involvement of Mark Burton, a BAFTA Award winner for his contributions to the wonderful screenplay for Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, is enough to make me stow the snark...for now."
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2008 is a very busy year for the 22-year-old Tisdale, best known for the two Disney-produced High School Musical movies. After shooting Upstairs, she will reprise her role as rich-girl Sharpay Evans in the third installment of Disney's money-making song-and-dance phenomenon, slated to begin production in April as the series's first theatrical feature. At the same time, she will continue playing Maddie on the teen series The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, and voice Candice Flynn for Disney's new cartoon show Phineas and Ferb, which premieres February 1st. Plus, she has to deflect the jokes about her "new" nose, due to her recent, highly publicized surgery for a deviated septum.
According to BuddyTV's KRIS DE LEON, Upstairs is Tisdale's first lead movie role, despite appearing in a number of (mostly TV) movies.
Production on They Came From Upstairs will begin at the end of January in Auckland, New Zealand, as that may be "the only place where aliens limit their invasions to 'upstairs,'" suggests Zap2it.com. The film hits theaters January 16, 2009.