NEWS & NOTES : PRODUCER TRIES TO RELAUNCH RISKY FOR-`PROFIT' ENTERPRISE.

Byline: Daily News Wire Services

Batten down the cardboard boxes, boys and girls. Adrian Profit may live again.

Profit, the lead character in Fox's fleeting cult fave last spring, was a psycho businessman who curled up naked each night in a cardboard box with the TV blaring. (Uh, not that there's anything wrong with that.)

Despite being nuked after just four episodes, ``Profit'' - starring Adrian Pasdar - could find new life on cable's Showtime network, if executive producer Stephen J. Cannell has his way.

In an interview during the TV critics' tour in Pasadena, Cannell said he's shopping ``Profit'' around, and that Showtime has shown some interest. Pasdar is primed to do new episodes, Cannell adds.

Worst-case scenario, Cannell says, is that he'll transfer the four remaining original segments to video and sell them.

Cannell, the brains behind ``The Rockford Files'' and ``Wiseguy,'' as well as a best-selling novelist (``The Plan''), says he's as proud of ``Profit'' as anything in his career. ``Profit'' ranked 138th among 160 series in the final Nielsens, but its audience ``was no smaller than `L.A. Firefighters,' '' he says. (Fox's flaming hunkfest is being reworked for the fall.)

Besides Fox, the only critics of ``Profit'' were some business types, Cannell says, who thought it portrayed them poorly. (Duh.) They said no real exec would ever murder his father, blackmail his boss out of his job and crash naked in a cardboard box. Maybe one, but not all three.

Moving right along, Cannell confirmed he's planning a big-screen feature for next year based on his 1983-87 NBC hit, ``The A-Team,'' which starred George Peppard and Mr. T. Cannell will recast the leads with younger actors.

A top candidate to replace Mr. T: Chicago Bulls star/Madonna-ex/tattoo canvas Dennis Rodman. (We pity the fool.)