‘Making the Band’ Makes a Return

Make way for another round of “Making the Band.” ABC’s unscripted series about a manufactured boy band, which drew modest overall ratings last year (averaging 8.3 million people per episode) while attracting teens and young viewers, returns Friday with a one-hour premiere at 8 p.m. Produced by Mary-Ellis Bunim and Jonathan Murray (“The Real World,” “Road Rules”), this half-hour entry followed the formation of a new musical group called O-Town, whose first single, “Liquid Dreams,” debuted at No. 1 on the pop charts. The second season will track the development of O-Town’s career, from the recording of its first album to the making of a music video and the launch of a concert tour. Some of that terrain was also covered by “Popstars,” the WB network series about an all-girl group that completed its first season last week. On April 20, “Making the Band” moves to its regular 8:30 p.m. Friday slot--the same half-hour that “Popstars” occupied--with a repeat of the previous week’s episode running at 8 p.m. For its part, ABC is hoping “Band” members Ashley Parker Angel, Erik-Michael Estrada, Dan Miller, Trevor Penick and Jacob Underwood will climb the Nielsen charts, with or without a bullet.

The Movie Business’ Easter Egg Hunt

Easter weekend is traditionally a time for religious observances, cute little bunnies, Easter egg hunts and family get-togethers, but if the box office is any judge, it is also a time when Americans increasingly take in a movie or two. While it lacks the economic punch of holidays like Memorial Day and Christmas, Easter has proven to be a good, if not great, time for studios to release movies that may turn into blockbusters. In 1998, for example, the ethereal romance “City of Angels,” starring Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan, debuted over Easter and grossed $15.4 million. The following year, it was “The Matrix,” which debuted at No. 1 with $27.8 million. And last year, the World War II submarine thriller “U-571” opened over Easter, grossing $19.5 million. So, while it’s a little early for summer, there should be some stiff competition among movies opening this week heading into Easter. Slugging it out for the youth crowd are two PG-13 comedies opening Wednesday--”Josie and the Pussycats,” a satire about a girl rock band from Universal Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer; Columbia Pictures’ “Joe Dirt,” starring David Spade as a janitor with a mullet hairdo, acid-washed jeans and a dream of finding the parents he lost--or who lost him; and the more adult-oriented comedy “Kingdom Come.” Opening Friday there’s “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” a romance about a year in the life of a British woman who works in the publishing world. And, for the more adventurous, the highly regarded, edgy film from Mexico, “Amores Perros,” also opens Friday in Los Angeles and 50 theaters nationwide. “I think the success of Easter weekend is really dictated not by the holiday but by the films in the marketplace,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co. “If there was a ‘U-571’ or ‘The Matrix’ hitting the marketplace this year, it would be clear who the winner would be, but there is so much out there right now that I think the audience will be fairly fragmented [in terms of box office].”

What Kind of Sales Will ‘Now 6’ Compile?

Can the latest entry in the increasingly popular “Now That’s What I Call Music” series of pop hits compilations eclipse the impressive first-week sales record set by its predecessor? We’ll know Wednesday, when SoundScan issues sales figures for the “Now 6” album, which was released last Tuesday. “Now 5” came out in November, at the start of the pre-Christmas selling season, which helped push sales to 444,000 during its first week and allowed the album to enter the sales chart at No. 3. Epic Records, which is releasing “Now 6,” expects the new volume to beat “Now 5’s’ ” first-week sales. “We feel comfortable predicting a number north of half a million,” says Steve Barnett, vice president and general manager of Epic Records Group. Wishful thinking? “I do think it has a shot at half a million,” says Scott Levin of the Musicland/Sam Goody chain. “Just look at the [songs]: It’s got ‘Bye Bye Bye’ by ‘N Sync, ‘With Arms Wide Open’ by Creed. It’s got Destiny’s Child, Backstreet Boys and J. Lo [Jennifer Lopez]. There’s no water in the CD--it’s all cream.” Other retailers’ projections for “Now 6” are more conservative, but there’s no debating the popularity of the “Now” series. Since it was introduced in the U.S. in 1998, 12.7 million copies of the first five volumes have been sold. Nothing like success to reverse the U.S. music industry’s long-held resistance to putting hits fresh out of the Top 10 into compilation albums. But “Now” albums are being issued at a rate of about three per year. “Conventional wisdom always said that we should protect those artists’ [regular] releases and not put these songs on compilations,” Barnett said. “But in the last few years, there’s been a dramatic change with all the movie soundtracks, corporate sponsorships, music in commercials. . . . Our research now shows that 50% of people have bought, or will buy, an album by one of the artists on the sampler as a result of buying the compilation. I think it’s safe to say that these compilations are another way of giving new exposure to the artists.”

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Compiled by Times staff writers