Miley Cyrus Was An Option For "Ramona and Beezus"?

From Variety: But studio co-topper Rothman had his own concerns. He refused to greenlight the movie for a dollar more than $15 million, and he wanted a star for one of the leads. Allen and the producers wanted the then largely unknown Selena Gomez for the role of Beezus, but Rothman had set his sights on Miley.

Her camp sought a $5 million payday for 25 days of work & when negotiations broke down, the project was again in jeopardy.

'We needed to have a way to get young girls all the way up into their teens excited about Ramona. You can make a movie for a low budget, but if no one has a burning desire to go and see it in the theater, it doesn't matter what the budget was. I wanted it to have a shot commercially.'

Gabler & the team caught a break when Selena began finding breakout success in her own right. The studio quickly struck a deal before her quote skyrocketed into the Miley sphere, and the project was back on the fast track. With his marketing team insistent the film could be sold to the audience of girls 6 to 12 years old.