Are Big Sales in the ‘Nature’ of Things?

Will Steely Dan be reeling in the sales now that the duo finally has a Grammy on its side? Last week, veteran pop-rock pair Walter Becker and Donald Fagen’s “Two Against Nature” was the surprise album of the year winner at the 43rd annual Grammys, and in years past that prize has often translated to a big bump at the nation’s record stores. Last year, Santana’s “Supernatural” surged to sales of 583,000 copies in the days after his big Grammy win, up from 219,000 the previous week. To maximize the Grammy buzz, Steely Dan’s record label, Giant Records, has launched a new campaign that includes commercials during major network late-night talks shows and on local news shows in major markets, including Los Angeles. Still, neither the label nor the retail market is expecting “Two Against Nature” to ring up sales like Santana, Lauryn Hill or Bonnie Raitt did after taking home the same trophy. Why? With no radio hits and an older, less fervent core audience, “Nature” is absent from pop radio. Also, unlike those past winners, Steely Dan did not perform on the global broadcast, which in many ways is more valuable commercially than winning. The new chart comes out Wednesday; how will Steely Dan fare? Last week, “Nature”--which has sold about 800,000 copies since its release a year ago--sold 3,700 copies nationwide, and, according to Giant general manager Larry Jacobson, early retail projections show the disc likely will sell about 25,000. Those numbers sit just fine with Jacobson, who said that the label has been energized by the big honor. “When they called out the name of the album, it was like Kirk Gibson’s home run,” he said, recalling the 1988 World Series hero for the Dodgers. “You wanted it to happen, but it was so perfect you couldn’t even hope for it before it happened.”

Box Office Doesn’t Reflect Pitt’s Appeal

Actor Brad Pitt is one of the world’s most recognizable movie stars, a heartthrob to his legion of female fans and a darling of the paparazzi. But when it comes to box office appeal, Pitt is uneven, at best. With the exception of two films--”Interview With the Vampire” in 1994 and “Seven” in 1995, which both earned more than $100 million--the most money any of Pitt’s films has made is the 1994 western saga “Legends of the Fall,” which grossed $66.6 million domestically. Despite this, Pitt has been able to drive up his asking fee to between $12 million and $15 million per picture. On Friday, Pitt will get a chance to prove that he can deliver when he is paired for the first time with box-office powerhouse Julia Roberts in “The Mexican,” an R-rated comedy/thriller from DreamWorks Pictures. While the studio is promoting it as an on-screen romance between the two, the fact is they don’t appear together all that much in the film. Pitt portrays a reluctant bagman whose girlfriend (Roberts) is taken hostage by a hit man while Pitt must travel to Mexico in search of a priceless antique pistol, known as “The Mexican.” Roberts has proven again and again that she is worth her weight in gold. Her last 21 films have grossed $1.5 billion domestically, while Pitt’s past 17 movies have grossed $693 million. “On the face of it, you’d think this guy would be on the level of Tom Cruise, but he’s not there yet,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co. “I think Cruise goes after the commercial material--except for ‘Magnolia,’ where he wanted to work with Paul Thomas Anderson. [Pitt’s] movie star quotient is off the map, but his box office isn’t really in line with what you would expect, given his appeal.” Pitt has deliberately chosen some roles that run against the pretty-boy image, like “Fight Club” ($37 million), “Kalifornia” ($2.4 million) and the current, Guy Ritchie-directed British gangster yarn “Snatch,” which made about $27 million through last week.

Taking a Hard View of Unscripted TV

Are television writers getting fed up with all the talk about unscripted programming, such as “Survivor” and its various imitators? One might suspect as much based on this Wednesday’s episode of “Law & Order,” which focuses on the slaying of a character featured in a show that looks suspiciously like MTV’s “The Real World” or CBS’ “Big Brother.” The plot hinges on whether an altercation resulting in the youth’s death was manipulated by the producers or network (a fictitious entity with the initials CBC) to juice up ratings during the February sweeps--all the more notable since the episode will run on the final night of that very ratings survey, right after the finale of Fox’s latest exercise in unscripted titillation, “Temptation Island.” Moreover, this week also marks the opening of “Series 7,” an independent film that takes an even more jaundiced view of the genre. Director Daniel Minahan shot his movie in the style of a fictional TV show, “The Contenders,” in which six ordinary people chosen at random must hunt down and kill each other--thus raising a similar scenario of death orchestrated in the name of ratings. Coincidentally, “Law & Order”--which stars Sam Waterston and Jerry Orbach and continues to deliver stellar ratings in its 11th season--is produced by Studios USA, a sister division of USA Films, which is releasing “Series 7.”

--Compiled by Times Staff Writers