Julia Roberts may be a global superstar, but Thursday night Abigail Breslin was the focus of screaming fans – hordes of little girls, that is – at the premiere of Kit Kittredge: An American Girl.

Roberts, as one of the film’s executive producers, made an appearance on the red carpet at Manhattan’s Ziegfield Theatre, along with Julianne Moore and her kids, and Jada Pinkett Smith and daughter Willow, who appears in the movie. But it was 12-year-old Breslin, the lead in the film inspired by the American Girl doll phenomenon, who drew the star worship, with packs of girls – many of them carrying their American Girl dolls – swarming, screaming and trying to track her with their cell phones.

Breslin told PEOPLE she also relates to the Girl craze. “I grew up with all the dolls,” she said. “I collected all the dolls since I was eight or so. I’ve just always liked the dolls, and Kit was always my favorite.”

The swarm continued at the film’s afterparty, held – where else? – at the American Girl store on nearby 5th Avenue. As Breslin sat with her family, the buffet table at the event was overflowing with pink cupcakes, feathers, flowers and cotton candy, girls were clamoring to get their photo taken with the young star.

Chris O’Donnell, who plays Breslin’s dad on screen, was struck by his little costar’s composure throughout it all. “Seeing Abigail walk in and hearing the crowd cheer for her, I feel like we’ve got a little Shirley Temple on our hands,” O’Donnell told PEOPLE. “It’s so sweet. She handles it so well. When we were with her in Chicago, I’m telling you there was a line 100 girls long. It was like they were waiting for Santa Claus.”

“Kit Kittredge: An American Girl” has no sex and not much of a city.

But this G-rated movie adventure is shaping up as Hollywood’s next serious bid for female viewers, some of whom showed their power by pushing the R-rated comedy “Sex and the City” to surprisingly strong first-weekend ticket sales of more than $57 million two weeks ago.

At first glance, the films have little in common, apart from their skew toward the female.

“Sex” runs hot, while “Kit” — scheduled for wide release on July 2, the same day as “Hancock,” starring Will Smith — does not. Fans of the fictional Manhattan writer Carrie Bradshaw, the heroine of “Sex and the City,” are often over 40. Ms. Kittredge, an aspiring reporter based on Mattel’s incredibly popular American Girl doll of the same name, mostly appeals to girls between 7 and 12.

Yet the films have a certain kinship. Each was made by a studio — “Kit” by Picturehouse, “Sex” by New Line Cinema — that was only weeks ago marked for elimination by the same corporate parent, Time Warner Inc.

And “Kit” has a shot at attracting an intense niche audience of the sort that boosted “Sex” at a time of year that has become better known for fantasies like the “Spider-Man” and “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, with their broad demographic appeal.

“I’m scared out of my mind,” said Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, a producer of “Kit Kittredge,” speaking by telephone last week. She was referring to an unconventional decision by Picturehouse executives to open this relatively small film in around 1,800 theaters, putting it in competition with potential blockbusters like “Hancock,” from Sony Pictures, and “Wall-E,” from the Walt Disney Company’s Pixar Animation Studios.

“Kit,” which cost about $10 million to produce, stars Abigail Breslin (“Little Miss Sunshine”) and features an ensemble that mingles unknown child actors with adult pros like Julia Ormond, Stanley Tucci, Chris O’Donnell and Joan Cusack. Set in 1934, it tells the story of a Cincinnati girl who is trying to get the local newspaper to take her seriously as a reporter, even as her family and just about everyone else struggles with the Great Depression.

(Julia Roberts, a client of Ms. Goldsmith-Thomas when she was a talent agent, is an executive producer of “Kit.” The two were among those with producing credits on earlier television movies based on three other American Girls: Molly, Felicity and Samantha.)

That quite so innocent an enterprise should be in a position to challenge much racier movies with much higher budgets has much to do with the promotional power of American Girl, which, like HBO’s long-running “Sex and the City” series, is helping to prime loyal fans for a first film based on the brand.

In the toy world, American Girl’s characters — “they never refer to them as ‘dolls,’ ” Bob Berney, the president of Picturehouse, said in an interview last week — are unusual in that they come with detailed story lines, from various eras, delivered in books that accompany each figure.

Kit Kittredge, spunky and a bit confused by the economic crunch around her, has been the central character in a half-dozen titles that have contributed to the sale of some 120 million books since the company was founded in 1986, said Ellen Brothers, American Girl’s president and a producer of the film.

“We approve all the marketing,” Ms. Brothers said, describing her company’s close involvement with the making and selling of the movie. And American Girl has been using its considerable reach to promote what it is calling “Kit’s Big-Screen Debut.”

The company’s mail-order catalog, a primary engine for sales, has a blurb promoting the movie on its May cover. Cities with American Girl retail outlets — New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and suburban Atlanta — will get to see the movie early, beginning on June 20. That first round is being helped along on the Web with Kit’s movie blog and, at the Grove shopping mall in Los Angeles, with the giveaway of “Kit’s Home on Abbott Place,” an elaborate playhouse built by Pardee Homes as part of a benefit for the homeless.

Last Saturday mothers and daughters trooped through the siding- and stone-veneered structure to admire it, and to donate $5 for “opportunity tickets” — never say “raffle” — that buy a shot at taking it home. “ ‘Win Me?’ ” one mother gasped, reading a sign outside, “Oh, my God!”

Other plans include movie-night dinners at the in-store American Girl cafes, which begin to sound, at least a little, like the viewing parties that pushed “Sex and the City” over the top during its May 30 opening weekend.

Allie Mayer, a publicist for movietickets.com, said the service had seen “steady activity” since it began selling tickets for the early engagement last month.

Mr. Berney said a box-office success would be “a little bittersweet”: His company will remain intact only long enough to release its existing films, including “Kit,” “Mongol” and “The Women” (scheduled for fall). To date, the studio’s biggest box-office hit has been “Pan’s Labyrinth,” which took in $37.6 million at the domestic box office in 2006.

If “Kit” works, its success would owe something not just to the promotions, but also to the straight-shooting approach of a director, Patricia Rozema, whose earlier work includes “Mansfield Park” (1999) for Miramax.

“I don’t think you talk down to children when you make a movie for them,” Ms. Rozema said. She spoke in a telephone interview about Kit’s rather intricate on-screen problem, which include doubts about a father, played by Mr. O’Donnell, who leaves home in search of work, and no small difficulties with a newspaper editor played by Wallace Shawn.

Still, Kit preserves her G-rated innocence, something Ms. Rozema said had become too rare, even in films aimed at the young. (“Bratz: The Movie,” which was based on a doll line and took in about $10 million for Lionsgate last summer, was rated PG.)

“They don’t need to be rattled,” she said. “They’re rattled enough.”

Joan Cusack admits that it was tough shuttling back and forth between her Chicago home and Bulgaria location for her brother, John’s, “War, Inc.” big screen political satire that opens in limited release May 23 – but she was glad to do it.

“At this point I appreciate how hard it is to get something made that you love, that you really feel has content that’s worth talking about, that’s stimulating cultural conversations.  It’s a great luxury,” says Joan, who plays an executive of the corporation running the world’s first fully-outsourced war – complete with tanks bearing sponsor logos.  “To me, whenever John is working on something that he feels passionate about and I have an opportunity to work with my family and be able to support him, of course I’m going to do it.”

She notes, “The easy part was that I have a great husband and John was obviously flexible about when I could go and come back, so it worked with my family.”

Her other upcoming film this summer couldn’t be much more different – the July 2 release “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl’s Story,” inspired by the popular line of dolls, and its young heroine wannabe reporter of the Great Depression era.  That film stars the superb Abigail Breslin, with whom Joan is currently working in the big screen adaptation of Jody Picoult’s “My Sister’s Keeper.” “I’d worked with her before in ‘Raising Helen,’” reminds Joan, “and she’s a great kid with a great family.” She also notes, “I have two boys, so this girls’ world wasn’t a world I knew very much about.  I was impressed with the content of the story and the way they dealt with the subject matter.  It’s very psychologically empowering.  It made me want an American Boys store.”

Next up for Cusack, “Toy Story 3.”  “They’re just in the beginning stages,” reports the actress known to Pixar lovers as the voice of cowgirl Jesse.  “That’s easy.  I can do it from my home.”

ON THE PERSONAL SIDE: Cheetah Girl Sabrina Bryan admits that time with her beau, “Dancing With the Stars” pro Mark Ballas, has been pretty hard to come by lately between their respective professional activities.  “We’re just both really busy,” says Bryan, who competed in the upcoming Disney Channel Games last week.  “My partner has his card taken right now with Kristi Yamaguchi, which I’m so happy for.  We did go on tour together, which was awesome – to meet so many of the ‘Dancing With the Stars’ fans face to face and hear their applause.”

Bryan finished the much-anticipated summer Disney Channel movie “Cheetah Girls 3: One World” in India with group mates Adrienne Bailon and Kiely Williams last month.  “I got back on a Saturday and Adrienne and I went to that Monday’s ‘Dancing With the Stars’ show.  I couldn’t wait to get back and see him dance with Kristi, so I support Team Yamaguchi.  They’ll definitely make the finals, I think.”

As for Bryan and Ballas?  “We’ll see. We’re seeing how were going.”

THE BIG SCREEN SCENE: As fans eagerly await J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” , which just wrapped production, Faran Tahir, who plays the Federation Captain, says he’s confident it will bring forth a new legion of Trekkies – and not the kind that still sleep in their parent’s basement.  “J.J. is one of those people who has the ability to re-introduce water to you in a new way.  He’s such a creative man,” claims Tahir.  “I love what he’s done with it because he hasn’t said farewell to the tradition or the story of ‘Star Trek,’ but he has such a fresh approach to it that I think he will re-introduce it to this generation in a way they can relate.  It will create this bridge between the people who grew up with it and this younger generation who didn’t know about it.”

Tahir is certainly no stranger to fantasy flicks as he is also starring in “Iron Man” as Robert Downey Jr.’s nemesis Raza.  The actor believes people will really take to Downey Jr.’s approach to playing a superhero.  “The thing about Robert is that no matter what he attempts, he brings so many layers to the character.  Yes, this is an action movie and you could just do the action part of it and it would be fine, but he brings a certain amount of levity, which not many actors can do,” he notes.  The movie certainly holds a special place for Tahir, whose son got a part in it as well.  “For other movies I might have said no, but for a nine-year-old to be in superhero movie, what is cooler than that?  I couldn’t deny him that, and he did an amazing job.”

IN HIS SITES: Gerald McRaney’s off to Namibia to hunt game for his “World of Beretta” Outdoor Life Network series.  It’s the kind of unscripted show multi-series veteran McRaney can get into.  As for other non-scripted fare, “I agree with my brother’s notion about reality television.  He said, ‘Survivor my a–!  The craft services table is 20 feet away.’”  McRaney’s wife, Delta Burke, is staying home.  He says that while she understands hunting intellectually, “She’s not going to go there herself.”  He’ll be bringing Horton Foote’s “Dividing the Estate” onto Broadway this fall.  On the scripted TV front, “I’ve seen a couple of things this year that look promising, but any more, something is going to have to be really interesting to get me involved in it.  I’m getting a little long in the tooth to putting up with something less just to have another payday.”