Hollywood Bound? Good Luck, Divas

For pop singers accustomed to churning out music videos, acting in movies may not seem like much of a stretch.

 The last few weeks have seen the release of three feature films with young divas as leading ladies, with more to come, all produced in the expectation that the pictures will be borne aloft by the stars' built-in audiences. But as Mariah Carey's disastrous experience with "Glitter" proved last year, the road to Hollywood is littered with the carcasses of unwatched pop-star movies.

"Just because you're very successful in one arena doesn't mean you'll be successful in another," said Ann Carli, the producer of the light-as-air Britney Spears confection "Crossroads," which brought in $17 million on its opening weekend in mid-February a second- place finish behind the hospital drama "John Q" and ahead of Disney's "Return to Never Land" but has since had a steep falloff in attendance.

Another diva film, "Queen of the Damned," was panned when it was released on Feb. 22, although loyal fans of Aaliyah, the young singer who died last August in a plane crash in the Bahamas propelled it to a first- place finish in that weekend's box-office listings. And "A Walk to Remember," with the 18- year-old pop singer Mandy Moore in the lead, has accumulated decent but not spectacular sums in the month since it opened.

Highly publicized debacles like "Glitter" one critic described it as a "crime against cinema" do not appear to have scared off potential crossover artists, who, in any event, have a long tradition to draw on. Frank Sinatra, Doris Day and Elvis Presley all had movie careers, even if critics did not always think much of them. In the 1960's the Beatles' classic "A Hard Day's Night" paved the way for music videos and remains vibrant still. Barbra Streisand went from nightclubs and Broadway to Hollywood, gaining iconic status. And Cher, who won fame alongside Sonny Bono and went on to a solo career, evolved into a respected actress, earning an Academy Award for "Moonstruck" in 1988.

The bellwether of financial success is Whitney Houston, whose 1992 film "The Bodyguard" grossed $122 million domestically, a pinnacle no other singer has come close to attaining. (Since their release dates, "Queen of the Damned" has made a total of $24 million at the domestic box office; "A Walk to Remember," $39.3 million; and "Crossroads," $31.2 million.)

While some of those careers lasted decades, many of today's music stars are a flash in the pan, with one or two hit albums if they are lucky, followed by obscurity and hand- wringing. Behind the bland, too-good- to-be-true characters delivered in many teen-idol movies lies the calculation that it is wise to have a backup career if and when the music dies. Put another way, some pop stars seem willing to bet that a movie career may have longer legs than a music one.

Even Ms. Carey, whose record label paid her $28 million to walk away

from her contract after the "Glitter" soundtrack album sold a mere 500,000 copies, may not have obliterated her chances of making a splash in Hollywood. She received positive trade reviews at the recent Sundance Film Festival for "Wise Girls," her latest cinematic effort, in which she worked with the Oscar winner Mira Sorvino.

"She's got a number of projects coming down the pike," said Ms. Carey's publicist, Cindi Berger, although she specified just one, a picture called "Sweet Science," set to start shooting this summer, in which Ms. Carey is to play a boxing manager.

Still, few singers are quitting their day jobs. "I'll always have my singing with Destiny's Child to fall back on," said Beyoncé Knowles, one-third of the Grammy-winning trio, whose acting debut in MTV's hip-hop version of "Carmen" led to her playing Foxxy Cleopatra, the female lead in the new "Austin Powers" movie, due for release this summer and featuring a cameo appearance by Ms. Spears.

With the music industry facing declining record sales and complaints by performers about record company business tactics, it makes sense for singers to try other avenues of income. "Contemporary artists are used to performing in videos, and even designing their videos, and that wasn't so much the case before music became such a visual medium," said Hilary Rosen, president and chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, a lobbying group for the recording companies. "The thing that distinguishes musicians' careers today is that they probably start out more visually oriented."

As a result, she said, making motion pictures seems like an obvious move. "At least it's in the back of their minds all along, as far as their careers go," Ms. Rosen said. "You can't help but see the opportunity."

The neo-soul singer Alicia Keys, who won five Grammy awards last week, told reporters at the event that she was considering an acting career. "I think it's something in the future," she said.

Nevertheless, the ephemeral nature of fame means that singers' expectations of box-office success are anything but assured. "On the Line," starring two members of the highly popular band 'N Sync, made only $4 million last fall, roughly what "Glitter" pulled in. Still more disappointing were "Bones" and "The Wash," both with the rapper Snoop Dogg in the lead.

Similarly, Madonna, by any measure an enormously successful artist, is not immune to brushes with failure. While "Desperately Seeking Susan," "Dick Tracy" and "Evita" had their moments, little else in her 19- film career lingers. Undeterred, Madonna recently completed filming "Love, Sex, Drugs and Money," directed by her husband, Guy Ritchie, and in May will perform in London in a play called "Up for Grabs."

"I personally think Madonna gets a very bad rap," said Ms. Rosen of the Recording Industry Association. "To say she doesn't succeed in movies is unfair: it doesn't mean she doesn't have talent or even that it's the wrong move. It's appropriate for people to stretch creatively, and it's admirable for them to take risks."

Besides, she said, a star is not solely responsible for a film's appeal at the box office, unlike a record, which usually bears the unmistakable imprint of the performer. "Motion pictures are so much more of a collaborative process, Ms. Rosen said. But some observers are less accommodating of musicians' desires to see themselves on the big screen.

"This is the almighty dollar waving itself before managers, agents and stars," said Ken Sunshine, a public-relations consultant who represents Ms. Streisand and the Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli. "They all think that maybe one day they'll get too old to keep making records that go to the top of the charts, and they see movies as another level of the entertainment business that can keep them employed in the future. But you don't become a great actor or actress just because you're selling millions of records to kids." Copyright By NICK MADIGAN

Some of those kids agree. Nikki Reed, a 13-year-old aspiring actress who lives in Culver City, Calif., went to a screening of "Crossroads" with several friends and came away convinced that Ms. Spears should stick to singing.

"People who are already famous in one field think they can move into a different field and that their fans will simply follow that sort of bothers me," Ms. Reed said. "Some people work really hard to be an actress. Just because Britney's a successful singer doesn't mean she can act. It was like paying $7 to take a nap."

Both Ms. Carli and David Gale, one of the five executive producers of "Crossroads," said they would not have made the picture had Ms. Spears not been a part of it. "It's a risky proposition to expose yourself in a field that you haven't succeeded in beforehand," Mr. Gale said. "It's definitely a gamble, and I wouldn't gamble on every big music star. For some artists, it's a good extension to what they're doing artistically. In some cases, they're not great movies."

Jeff Levy-Hinte, producer of the forthcoming "Laurel Canyon" which stars Frances McDormand and Kate Beckinsale and not a single pop diva said that films like "Crossroads" and "A Walk to Remember" have "oddly idealized" story lines that portray a world in which all emotions are simple. "What you're seeing on the screen is so profoundly unrealistic," he said. "For me, they do things in such a disingenuous way, saying that the world is safe even when bad things happen."

Fortunately, not all movies that feature young singers promise an empty tale. "The Time Machine," scheduled to open nationwide on Friday, is based on the classic science- fiction novel by H. G. Wells. It features as its leading lady the Irish recording artist Samantha Mumba, who had never acted in a film before.

"If I hadn't been a singer, a casting agent wouldn't have seen me in People magazine and I wouldn't have gotten the audition," Ms. Mumba said after arriving in Washington from Ireland at the start of a two-week promotional tour for the movie. "Even then, I didn't think I'd get the part. When I did, I nearly died, I was so excited."

She plans to do more. The two careers, music and films, can coexist, said Ms. Mumba, whose single "Gotta Tell You" was a hit in Britain, Ireland and the United States and who last summer toured with 'N Sync. "It's all about proper scheduling," she explained. "If you plan ahead, if you're organized, you can do it."

Still, it pays to be cautious. Mya Harrison, who uses only her first name professionally and who shared a Grammy Award last Wednesday with Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim and Pink for their chart-topping version of the 1975 hit "Lady Marmalade," said she wants to start her movie career with small roles so that she can build her confidence as an actress. "I consider myself a singer who just happened to end up in a movie," she said, referring to her role in the film version of the musical "Chicago," which is set for release on Christmas Day.

A movie that fails, Ms. Harrison speculated, would not be much different than a record that stays unbought in a store. "It could hinder your career for a moment," she said, "but you can always come back."