Cher & Christina Aguilera Bring Good Tidings Just In Time for Pride
There's a gay Perfect Storm afoot that oughta be a rabble rouser. Also in news: the Friends kids keep on truckin', a live-action sorta Clone High is kicking into gear, and Jessica Simpson has terrible news.
Sweet gay Christmas, this is news. Cher, who some gay folks like, and Christina Aguilera, ditto, are teaming up to be in a movie musical called Burlesque. The film is about a small town girl who moves to Los Angeles and ends up performing at a club overseen by its all-knowing, former dancer proprietress. We're pretty sure we know who plays what role, but really it doesn't matter. All the gay dudes in all the land will be lining up for this one—to love it, to mock it, or just because that's what everyone else is doing. [Variety]
Having finally left Central Perk for long enough to explore New York and discover things as modern as really high rents and the Internet, Phoebe and Monica have decided they'd like to make a web show together. Lisa Kudrow is going to do a second season of her Web Therapy show, on which her old costar Courteney Cox will guest star. Probably to plug Cougar Town. Which looks rough. [THR]
Larry Doyle (I Love You, Beth Cooper) will direct an adaptation of his own upcoming novel Go Mutants!, which is about a high school where all the creatures from 1950s cheapo sci-fi/horror flicks (who were all real!) send their kids. So these weirdos try to blend in with the regular kids, even though they're loud and weird and stick out like sore thumbs. So it could have been called Go Theater! and it'd basically be the same thing. [Variety]
Pete Travis (the nonsensical Vantage Point) will direct a modern adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth. Because, oh good. We're getting a modern Hamlet (again), and we sorta got a modern R & J. We're really waiting for the modern King John, or the modern Measure for Measure, just to see Jena Malone as a nun who hooks herself out to save her brother (Sebastian Stan). Also, um, didn't we already get a modern Macbeth with the masterful (seriously, go rent it) Scotland, PA? Yes, we did. [THR]
Enchanted director Kevin Lima has signed on to direct Frank, a romantic comedy about a nerdy science lady who uses her genetics prowess to make herself a friend. Presumably said friend turns out to be rumply and handsome and then they fall in love until he finds out he's fake and goes away and a sad montage plays but then they get back together in the end. So it's a modern update of Frankenstein, if Victor and the Monster got gay together. Oh, let's do that! [Variety]
Poor sad Jessica Simpson is returning, head drooped dejectedly like a be-titted Charlie Brown, to reality TV. She'll star in the 2010 VH1 (oh, Jessica...) series The Price of Beauty, in which she travels the world and learns beauty tips (some are Extreme!!!) from women all over the place. So at least it's got some marginal amount of merit to it. I mean, it's not just her wandering around a mansion and yelling about tunafish. That's something. [THR]
Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire composer A.R. Rahman has just signed a worldwide licensing deal with Universal Music. He's also putting the finishing touches on the soundtrack he wrote for an upcoming Vince Vaughn comedy. So basically, he's gone from zero to hero! Albeit when we say "zero" we mean "He was very well known abroad but here in America we had no idea who he was and that's all that really matters in the end anyway". You know. [Variety]
Delightful actress Kathryn Hahn is on the move. She's inked a deal to play a supporting role in James L. Brooks' high profile new comedy, and she's got a TV pilot in the works that'd she'd star in. Must be crazy to suddenly have it all coming together. It's like when we finally do laundry after weeks and weeks, and we just can't believe it finally happened. [THR]