Breaking Up With Disney

Still, Disney has had to deal with its share of typical teenage rebellious outbursts: HSM star Vanessa Hudgens' nude pics circulating online in 2007, Cyrus making a mean-girl jab at Disney heirs Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato on YouTube in 2008, and so on. (Incidentally, Disney contracts do have a morals clause addressing appropriate behavior, but it's the same as any standard SAG contract, and a spokeswoman says it's never been invoked.) ''We can't control what human beings do,'' a Disney exec says. ''A teenager's brain — they just do dumb things sometimes.'' Last year, Cyrus' stream of minor shockers — a bra-revealing snapshot here, tabloid reports of snotty behavior there, a provocative Vanity Fair pictorial everywhere — fueled speculation that she wanted off her hit show in light of her newfound megastardom. (She's denied it.) And success seems to embolden her to wander off script more. See, for example, her recent comments in Teen Vogue that Alice in Wonderland is a ''perverted movie'' that's ''all about Ecstasy.'' Way to dis a fellow Disney girl.

Such antics call to mind past tween stars' bumpy transitions — Duff's teenage feud with Lindsay Lohan, not to mention Lohan's and Spears', um, entire adult lives. (Imagine if the latter two had still been under contract to Disney at the height of their public meltdowns.) And that calls into question whether franchises like Hannah Montana and High School Musical can live on into syndicated, logo'd-backpack-generating infinity even if their stars don't stay on the straight and narrow. ''There's not a model that came before this to teach Disney how to do this business,'' one TV executive says. ''It's much easier when it's animated, but these are human beings.'' As HSM's Corbin Bleu puts it, ''We cannot be the teenagers we were in High School Musical forever, as much as parents want us to. It will be nice to shake off some of the nice-guy, wholesome image.'' Bleu's just finished shooting The Beautiful Life, a sexy CW pilot about models. Translation: ample potential for tasteful half-nudity.

Recently, Disney has made its young actors so famous that the kids have the world at their feet. ''They're now the stars of movies, as opposed to the third daughter,'' says Ross. True enough. Efron — who recently scuttled plans to star in a Footloose remake, citing a desire to diversify — is in talks to headline an adaptation of The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud, a novel about a cemetery caretaker who talks to his dead brother. Cyrus will use her Hannah hiatus to shoot Nicholas Sparks' next tearjerker, The Last Song, about a teen and her parents' divorce. ''I have no doubt that Miley will be able to do what's necessary [to transition to broader stardom],'' Sparks says. ''When you saw Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman for the first time, you knew the camera loved her. The camera loves Miley Cyrus.''

And it turns out Cyrus, for one, has a pretty clear idea of where she'd like to take her post-Disney career. Don't worry, parents, she's not pining for an Oscar-bait role as a heroin addict. She wants to follow the path of Ben Stiller. ''He directs, produces, writes, stars in — he literally does everything on his films,'' she told EW just before Hannah Montana The Movie premiered. ''That's something that you've got to be so talented and so focused to do.'' And we'll be shocked if There's Something About Miley isn't greenlit by the time you finish reading this sentence.

(Additional reporting by Adam Markovitz)

The Kingdom's Changing Faces

Zac has moved on (and Miley's likely next), but the Mouse has plenty of fresh stars ready and willing to take their places.

Zac Efron
Instant star with HSM ('06). Has left Disney.

Miley Cyrus
Owes one more season of Hannah.

Jonas Brothers
Just launched Disney show.

Selena Gomez
Another Disney multimedia darling.

Demi Lovato
Star of Sonny With a Chance

Sterling Knight
Lovato's heartthrob costar on Sunny.

Bridgit Mendler
Guested on JONAS. May get own show.

Debby Ryan
The Suite Life's Southern belle.

Hutch Dano
Star of upcoming Zeke and Luther