Maybe Next: Stupid Quarterback Tricks

Perhaps David Letterman should don pads as he prepares for the new TV season, with CBS hoping the late-night host’s ratings will get a kick-start from the return of NFL football to its schedule. Coming back tonight from a summer vacation, Letterman has a lineup of guests this week that includes Denver Broncos star Terrell Davis, football commentator Terry Bradshaw and (since it is still baseball season) New York Yankees slugger Darryl Strawberry. CBS has long suffered from a shortage of men--especially the younger men who once flocked to Letterman--watching the network’s prime-time lineup, and the network anticipates that football will greatly increase its audience within that demographic. Even if having the NFL helps in that regard, Letterman still faces an uphill struggle, with his “Late Show” averaging 4 million viewers nightly compared to roughly 6.3 million tuning in NBC’s “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.” CBS officials have long maintained that Letterman can be more competitive if the network evens the playing field a bit outside late night. With CBS adding football and NBC losing “Seinfeld”--one of TV’s most popular shows among men--they might have a chance to prove it.

Can a Fugee Outlast a Big Ship?

Will Lauryn Hill be pop music’s Queen of the Hill this week? That question will be answered Wednesday when SoundScan reports the first-week sales figures for the photogenic Fugees frontwoman’s new solo album, “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.” Some retailers believe that the number will be among the year’s biggest, rivaling the figure posted three weeks ago by Snoop Dogg’s “Da Game Is to Be Sold, Not to Be Told.” The Snoop album sold nearly 520,000 copies during its first week in stores, the second-highest initial-week figure of the year behind only the Beastie Boys’ “Hello Nasty,” which sold almost 682,000 copies in its debut week last month. “This album has been highly anticipated for a long time,” Violet Brown, urban music buyer for the Wherehouse retail chain, says of the Hill collection. “Fans have wanted a solo album from Lauryn almost from the moment the Fugees’ [last] album came out [two years ago].” Hill may be facing an iceberg though: Another release reporting first-week sales this week is “Back to Titanic,” James Horner’s movie soundtrack sequel.

‘American Psycho’? He Has Our Vote

The search for an actor to play the lead in “American Psycho,” Lions Gate Films’ adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ novel about a yuppie serial killer, continues. Last week, after Leonardo DiCaprio failed to name a start date on which he could begin work on the movie, Lions Gate decided to move ahead without him. The production company rehired director Mary Harron, who had been let go when DiCaprio got involved. Harron, who had long wanted actor Christian Bale (of “Little Women” and the upcoming “Velvet Goldmine”) to play the part, said she was looking forward to discussing casting with Lions Gate executives. Before she got the chance, however, an interesting item popped

up on the production company’s Web site (https://www.lionsgatefilms.com/americanpsycho/):”The Search is on for a new lead. It’s a free country. Cast your vote! Tell us: Who do you think should star?” Preliminary results to this write-in poll, posted in the middle of last week, had Bale in first place with 93% of the vote. Christian Slater was second, with 4%, and Matt Dillon and Johnny Depp got 1% each, tying for third place with Eric Cartman, one of the fictional characters in the animated TV series “South Park.” Every day, though, the poll results change. First, the vote percentages vanished. Then Eric Stolz was added to the list, displacing Cartman and ranking fifth. Late Friday, a tally of the top 10 vote-getters was supposed to be posted, but the results were not forthcoming. Does all this mean problems for Lions Gate if Bale is not eventually cast? It may, judging by one posting on the Internet gossip site CyberSleaze. Lions Gate is derided for behaving in a “less-than-graceful manner” and is urged to give Bale the role he has “long coveted and suffered humiliation for.”

--Compiled by Times staff writers and contributors