Well, at Least the Music Seems Unsinkable

Look for “Titanic” to come sailing back into the public consciousness this week. A sequel to the blockbuster soundtrack to the Oscar-winning movie will be released Tuesday by Sony Classical/Sony Music Soundtrax. Titled “Back to Titanic,” the album features a new 19-minute orchestral suite composed by James Horner, who brought together all the themes from his Oscar-winning score into one piece of music, as well as a previously unreleased version of the Celine Dion hit “My Heart Will Go On” that incorporates dialogue from the film’s stars, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. Sony executives don’t expect it to even come close to duplicating the success of the original, which topped the national sales chart for 16 weeks this year and has sold nearly 9 million copies in the U.S. alone. But even if “Back to Titanic” sells only a fraction of the original, it will be a success. Worldwide sales of the first album are approaching 25 million copies. “If we follow in the path of previous sequels to big hit soundtracks,” says Glen Brunman, executive vice president of Sony Music Soundtrax, “we should be able to sell about 3 million copies worldwide. But we hope to do better than that, and we’ve already broken a lot of rules with this [music].” Bob Bell, new-release buyer for the Wherehouse, says the retail chain has “high hopes” for the new “Titanic” album. “It should be absolutely huge,” says Bell, adding that the collection is sure to get a sales boost when the home video of the movie is released Sept. 1. “This isn’t just some contrived record-company marketing scheme. People were actually asking for the music that’s on this record when the first record came out.” Also expected to help sales: Horner’s new symphonic suite will be the centerpiece of “Back to Titanic Live in Concert” on Oct. 9 and 10 at the Hollywood Bowl. The concerts, with an 84-piece orchestra conducted by Horner, will be filmed for a TV special. Tickets go on sale today.

At NBC, the Doctor Is Definitely In

NBC wants everyone to know “Frasier” will replace “Seinfeld” as the anchor for its “Must-See TV” Thursday lineup, and the network will begin that process in a big way this week. In addition to its regular Tuesday telecasts, “Frasier” reruns will air the next two Thursdays after both “Friends” and “Seinfeld.” The following week, NBC bids farewell to “Seinfeld” by repeating the program’s finale and highlight show, with “Frasier” moving as of Sept. 17 into the 9 p.m. position that “Seinfeld” has occupied since 1993. This happens the week before the new TV season officially begins and “Frasier’s” sixth-season premiere. In between, the Kelsey Grammer sitcom could make Emmy history by winning a fifth consecutive award as best comedy, something no program has ever done. “Frasier” and “Seinfeld” have always been linked, with “Cheers” providing the platform that helped turn “Seinfeld” into a major hit, before the combination of “Seinfeld” and “Frasier”--which was spun off from “Cheers”--seamlessly picked up where the two left off. In addition to the multiple airings, NBC is cranking up its vaunted promotional machinery to full steam, but the network can only hope this latest baton pass goes as smoothly.

Not Quite the Last Days of Disco

The 1970s may have made the dubious contributions of disco, Farrah Fawcett’s hair and Brooke Shields in jeans, but Hollywood continues to mine the “Saturday Night Fever” era for box-office gold. Nowhere in those days were the drugs and decadence more in evidence than at New York City’s trendiest nightclub, Studio 54, where couples would dance and make love under the hottest disco ball in town. On Friday, Miramax Films will release “54,” a film that tries to recapture the pulsating atmosphere of the famous nightspot, where high society mixed with New York’s street scene. The movie stars Mike Meyers, Neve Campbell, Ryan Phillippe and Salma Hayek. Meyers plays Steve Rubell, the Brooklyn-born entrepreneur who created Studio 54. Written and directed by Mark Christopher, the movie revolves around a naive and ambitious working-class Jersey kid (Phillippe) who rises through the ranks of Studio 54 to become a popular bartender. Through him, we see the decadent world of the famous club, a world of drugs, music, fashion and pre-AIDS sexual abandon. The ‘70s are a popular theme in movies these days, but the films have had varying box-office success. “The Brady Bunch Movie,” for example, grossed $46.5 million, while “Boogie Nights” took in $26.4 million domestically. “The Last Days of Disco,” which premiered May 29, grossed only $3.1 million in North America. Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Inc., said the soundtracks from ‘70s-era movies do extremely well. “This is short-term nostalgia,” Dergarabedian said. “Not long ago, everyone thought the ‘70s was a cultural wasteland. You know, disco and leisure suits. Now, that’s cool. Nobody thought the ‘70s would come back, but it has.” In November, Miramax plans to release “Velvet Goldmine,” a film set in London during the early ‘70s, glam-rock scene.

--Compiled by Times staff writers and contributors