Tay

Frankie Muniz hasn't said a word to Hilary Duff in 24 years, and it all goes back to one question her mom asked him in a dressing room when he was 16. He answered it honestly. By the next morning Hilary was cast in his movie, and a year later her mom was asking Disney for $5 million, the same number Frankie was reportedly getting paid. Here's the story the way Frankie told it on a podcast last fall. He was guest starring on Lizzie McGuire in 2002, hanging out in Hilary's dressing room, when Susan Duff asked what he was doing that summer. He told her he was shooting Agent Cody Banks, basically a teenage James Bond movie for MGM. She asked if there was a girl in it who'd be good for Hilary. Frankie actually had a say in who got that part. He kept that to himself, because he was hoping they'd cast Kristin Kreuk from Smallville. The next morning Susan came up to him on set and said they'd be spending the summer together. The contract had been signed the night before. Now look at where Hilary's career was at that moment. She was 14, and the show and the character that made her famous both belonged to Disney. Cody Banks was the first big thing she'd done that Disney didn't own. MGM was paying Frankie $2 million for it, the most any child actor had gotten since Macaulay Culkin. The movie opened at #2 in March 2003 and made $58 million worldwide. Seven weeks later The Lizzie McGuire Movie opened at #2 too, and ended up at $55 million on a budget of around $17 million. So right when Susan sat down with Disney to talk about a sequel, her daughter had two hits in seven weeks, and one of them came from another studio. Disney offered $4 million for the sequel, plus 4% of the gross and a $500,000 bonus once the first movie passed $50 million. Susan wanted the bonus paid up front. Disney pulled the whole offer at the end of May, and she told Entertainment Weekly that "Disney thought they'd be able to bully us." What the Duffs were asking for, according to trade coverage that June, was $5 million for the movie and $100,000 an episode. The writeup literally compared it to Frankie Muniz's pay. MGM had reportedly just bumped Frankie to $5 million for Cody Banks 2. Christy Carlson Romano, who did Cadet Kelly with Hilary, tells a story about having lunch with Susan around then. Susan leaned in and told her, "When someone sits forward, you sit back." Romano says it took her 15 years to figure out what that meant. Disney figured it out a lot faster. About a week after the Duffs walked, Michael Eisner was asking to reopen talks. Walking away from Lizzie McGuire at 15 sounds like a huge gamble. Three months later Metamorphosis was the #1 album in the country, and that Christmas she was in theaters with Steve Martin in Cheaper by the Dozen. Cody Banks 2 went to London the next year without her and made $28.7 million worldwide, under half of what the first one did. Hilary finally addressed the stage mom thing this March. She said she was never pushed into acting or singing, and talked about how hard it was being a family up against the industry. Frankie says he regrets letting it end the friendship, and he doubts Hilary even knows the full story. They were 14 and 16 when it happened, and neither one of them was the person making the calls.