Big Dates in Anaheim for the Dixie Chicks

The Dixie Chicks are fledglings when it comes to headlining an arena tour, so watch this week for the trio to treat its sold-out shows Saturday and next Monday at the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim as a means to hatch a new career chapter. “These are big shows for them,” says the group’s manager, Simon Renshaw. “This whole tour is taking things to a new level.” That’s because the Dixie Chicks--Emily Robison, Natalie Mains and Martie Seidel--have not headlined a major tour before, even though they have proven themselves to be a force as an album-selling act (their second album, “Fly,” debuted at No. 1 on the pop charts last year, a rare feat for a country act). The Chicks toured plenty last year, but it was always as second fiddle: They opened for Tim McGraw, joined George Strait’s all-star stadium tour and also added some twang to the Lilith Fair. Renshaw says the Chicks had plenty of offers to headline after their first album went platinum, but they demurred because they didn’t feel they had the material to fill a 90-minute to two-hour performance. Now, with the hits on “Fly” added to the set list, can the Chicks handle the center spotlight? The tour’s first shows received strong reviews in Canada, and the 70 U.S. dates, which began last week in Washington, have enjoyed brisk ticket sales. That says a lot, according to Stann Findelle, a longtime columnist for Performance magazine, a concert industry trade. “Even though they’ve only had two [major label] albums, they’ve shown staying power and--more importantly, since they’re originating from the country genre--a crossover ability that proves they can pull off this kind of tour. . . . They’re now in the league with anybody else playing these size venues.”

Teen Comedies Go for a Share of Summer Pie

With Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford, Nicolas Cage and Russell Crowe starring at the local megaplex in this year’s big summer films, teen-oriented movies that feature lesser-known young actors might find it difficult to get noticed. But if recent years are any gauge (“American Pie” comes immediately to mind), Hollywood never knows when one of its low-budget teen movies will ignite a run on the box office. This Friday, Miramax will release the latest entrant in this always-volatile derby: “Boys and Girls.” Directed by Robert Iscove (“She’s All That”) and starring Freddie Prinze Jr. and Claire Forlani, the film takes a look at the essential contradiction of relationships through the prism of college dating. Coming in July will be two other teen-oriented films, “The In Crowd,” a psychological thriller from Warner Bros., and Sony’s “The Loser,” the latest teen comedy from director Amy Heckerling (“Clueless”). So far this year, the box office for youth-oriented films has resembled the wild spikes and dips of the Nasdaq stock market. Winners include “Scream 3” ($89 million), “Final Destination” ($51.6 million) and “Road Trip” ($45.5 million). But who remembers “Isn’t She Great” ($3 million), “Gossip” ($5 million) and “Whatever It Takes” ($8.7 million)? “The teen audience is extremely fickle and it seems that, for awhile, Hollywood really had its finger on the pulse of what excited the teen audience,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box office tracking firm, Exhibitor Relations Inc. “They really kicked off the year strongly with ‘Scream 3,’ using the horror angle to get kids into theaters.” But the teen genre runs hot and cold, he noted. “It really has to do with how closely filmmakers reflect what is going on with teenagers at that moment in time. That is a hard thing to track. It’s hard enough gauging audiences in general. Teens have very specific opinions of what they like or don’t like.”

--Compiled by Times Staff Writers