ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT REPORTS FROM THE TIMES, NEWS SERVICES AND THE NATION’S PRESS.

TELEVISION

Artisan, FX Collaborate on Enron Project

If a major scandal is in the news, can a TV movie be far behind? The FX cable channel and Artisan Television are developing one, with the help of Lowell Bergman, the award-winning journalist whose “60 Minutes” expose of the tobacco industry was chronicled in the 1999 film “The Insider.”

The project had its genesis a month ago when Artisan Pictures CEO Bob Cooper met with Bergman, a longtime friend and collaborator who had recently produced a “Frontline” documentary on Enron and the energy crisis.

Cooper approached FX, with whom Artisan has a TV deal. Their last outing resulted in last month’s civil rights drama “Sins of Our Fathers.”

Cooper will executive produce the project, which he hopes will start shooting within a year. In his mind, it has the same power as such TV movies as “Barbarians at the Gate” and “And the Band Played On,” both of which he oversaw when he was president of HBO Pictures.

“The major challenge is cutting through the messiness and clutter of real life--finding a way to tell a story that’s accessible, compelling and true, “ he told The Times on Thursday.

“An interesting prototype is ‘All the President’s Men,’ which dramatized the machinations and cover-up of a government. As we move from layer to layer, people will see that things aren’t what they appear. Viewers are jaded and want to be surprised.”

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MSNBC Apologizes for Slur in Graphic

MSNBC has apologized for an error in an on-screen graphic that turned the name of an interview subject into a racial slur. In an Enron case segment that was broadcast Monday, Republican consultant Niger Innis, an African American, had an extra g added to his first name.

Shortly after it appeared, correspondent Gregg Jarrett offered Innis a “profuse apology.”

“Oh, God, I thought you guys thought I was a rapper or something,” Innis replied. “Media bias continues. Just kidding. It’s not the first time it’s happened, but hopefully it’s the last.”

It was strictly a typographical mistake, network spokesman Mark O’Connor said Thursday. He wouldn’t say whether any disciplinary action was taken against the person who made the blunder.

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THE ARTS

Rockwell Show Tops the 2001 Museum Pack

The most popular art museum exhibition in Southern California last year was the touring Norman Rockwell retrospective at the San Diego Museum of Art, according to a worldwide survey of exhibition attendance figures in 2001 released by the Art Newspaper in London.

The Rockwell show, No. 25 on a list of 650 exhibitions, averaged 2,910 daily visitors. The world’s most popular show was “Vermeer and the School of Delft” at New York’s Metropolitan Museum (8,033 daily), one of only two exhibitions to garner more than 5,000 daily visitors (the other was the Met’s show of Jackie Kennedy memorabilia).

In L.A., an Old Master drawing show at the Getty Museum, “Raphael and His Circle,” was the most well-attended at No. 34 (2,648 daily). Like the Rockwell show, the Raphael exhibition opened in 2000 but ran briefly into the following year. “Winslow Homer and the Critics” topped LACMA’s roster, at No. 98 (1,449 daily), while MOCA’s biggest draw was last summer’s David Hockney photography retrospective at No. 157 (1,073 daily).

Least popular: “Queen of Sheba” at the Palazzo Bricherasio, Turin, Italy (103 daily).

The survey rates shows by average daily attendance, rather than final tallies, because shows run for different lengths of time.

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MUSIC

Adams to Compose 9/11 Commemoration

When the New York Philharmonic recently announced its 2002-03 season, the first under its new music director, Lorin Maazel, it also announced a special program: “September 11, 2001--In Memoriam.” The concert would consist of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and a newly commissioned work to commemorate the World Trade Center attacks.

What the orchestra didn’t say was who would compose the piece. The Times has learned that the commission has gone to John Adams, for a substantial work for chorus and orchestra.

The world premiere is scheduled for Sept. 19 at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall.

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THEATER

Weber to Join Cast of ‘The Producers’

Steven Weber, best known as one of the stars of the 1990-97 TV series “Wings,” has been chosen to replace Matthew Broderick as the hapless Leo Bloom, the timid accountant-turned-felonious producer, in the Broadway hit “The Producers.” He will join Henry Goodman, who replaces Nathan Lane as Max Bialystock, beginning March 19 at the St. James Theatre.

Weber, who has a recurring role on the ABC series “Once and Again,” is no stranger to the stage. The actor made his Broadway debut in the 1980s in Mike Nichols’ production of “The Real Thing” and last year starred in a concert version of the 1960s iconic musical, “Hair,” at L.A.’s Wadsworth Theatre.

Elaine Dutka