Don’t Say You Haven’t Been Warned

Will the Spice Girls take Hollywood by storm? Well, they certainly will take Hollywood Boulevard by storm when they arrive this week for the U.S. premiere of their new film, “Spiceworld.” Authorities will block off the street around Mann’s Chinese Theater at 5 p.m. Thursday in preparation for the arrival of the British pop singers. The all-girl group--Emma Bunton (Baby Spice), Geri Halliwell (Ginger Spice), Melanie Brown (Scary Spice), Melanie Chisholm (Sporty Spice) and Victoria Adams (Posh Spice)--will arrive in a red double-decker bus emblazoned with a British flag, tossing out gifts to their fans, who will be encouraged to create enough mayhem to satisfy the paparazzi. Columbia Pictures says the first 500 fans will get in free. The studio, which has the North American rights to the movie, describes “Spiceworld” as a ‘90s version of the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” with a little bit of “Speed” and “This Is Spinal Tap” thrown in. Whatever. British films have done rather well in the Colonies of late. The comedy “Bean,” released by Gramercy Pictures, took in $45.2 million, and Fox Searchlight’s “The Full Monty” grossed $35.7 million. Whether American movie audiences embrace “Spiceworld” remains to be seen. The group’s popularity seems to have waned a bit, with its second album having sold about 1.5 million copies, compared to 5.4 million for its debut. Another test will be the number of households that bought the group’s Saturday night pay-per-view concert (see review, F17). One thing is certain: The movie’s reception can’t be blamed on a lack of publicity.

The Blues Arrive in Sunny San Diego

One of the keys to the success of the House of Blues chain has been opportunistic marketing. The latest example occurs this week when HoB takes over a 1,500-capacity San Diego nightclub for a series of shows in advance of Sunday’s Super Bowl. Appearing at the downtown 4th & B club will be Los Lobos tonight, Wyclef Jean on Tuesday, George Thorogood on Wednesday and Jim Belushi & the Sacred Hearts on Thursday. “This is a market we’re looking at, and we’re kind of testing the waters,” says Kevin Morrow, vice president of entertainment for the chain, which also set up shop in Atlanta during the 1996 Olympics. “It’s a good opportunity to get our brand name out there to a lot of people. Obviously, that includes all the corporate sponsors who show up for the game.” The company is still making expansion plans despite the ouster in October of founder and CEO Isaac Tigrett, who founded the West Hollywood-based nightclub-restaurant chain in 1992. Tigrett retains a chairman emeritus title at the corporation but is no longer involved on a daily basis. He stepped down as CEO amid complaints by the board of directors about high spending and poor financial performance at the chain, sources said. Greg Trojan, House of Blues president and chief operating officer, assumed Tigrett’s duties and is overseeing expansion plans that call for a hotel opening in Chicago this summer and a nightclub opening in Las Vegas before the end of the year. The House of Blues currently operates six clubs around the country, including its flagship facility on the Sunset Strip.

Speaking of the Super Bowl . . .

There was a time the networks used the game as a launching pad to introduce new series. Lately, the trend has been to run “special” episodes of existing programs, particularly those needing a little extra promotional help. That description applies to “3rd Rock From the Sun,” which looked like an instant hit when it premiered two years ago but faded in the ratings as NBC bounced the show to three time slots. This season, the series has been getting its clock cleaned Wednesdays opposite ABC’s “The Drew Carey Show.” Hoping to give its resident aliens new life, NBC will air a one-hour “3rd Rock” on Sunday after the Super Bowl, employing a “Must-See” stunt in which models such as Cindy Crawford and Angie Everhart guest-star. Whether NBC can save the John Lithgow series has become even more of a priority now, since the program is seen as a candidate for a better time period next season when “Seinfeld” goes away. The sitcom certainly figures to receive a big handoff from football: Last year’s championship game on Fox drew nearly 88 million viewers, and 29 million of them hung around to watch “The X-Files”--a record audience for that show.