We're not really sure why this is happening (other than these people being weird), but Mamma Mia! is huuuge in the UK. Like, top-grossing film of all time. Beats Titanic, even.

Now that Meryl Streep's career renaissance has been buffeted by a pair of blockbuster chick flicks, the actress has begun feeling her oats, readying Hollywood for a new reign of Meryl (all agents are required to learn at least two foreign accents) and punishing the dissenters. In a new LAT profile, the actress mocks both Universal ("The smart guys banked on Hellboy to carry them throughout the year. The Mamma Mia! wagon is pulling all those movies that didn't have any problem getting made") and Fox head Tom Rothman, whose nasal voice Streep nails. Still, the empowered star's boldest move is perhaps her most terrifying, as Female First reveals:

Resisting the Lucas-esque compulsion to digitally swap Pierce Brosnan's open-throated squawk with a mellifluous gay lilt, Universal has instead touched on a decidedly more modest touch in tweaking its hit Mamma Mia! for a late-summer revival: Subtitles, and plenty of them. Behold Mamma Mia! The Sing-Along Version, announced earlier this month and finally making its way into karaoke-plexes near you this weekend. And the early reviews describe just the scenario that can make the ABBA musical a phenomenon all over again:

You look nervous. Is it the scars? You wanna know how we got 'em? Come here. Look at us. One night, we couldn't sleep, so we turn on QVC. They're pushing something called the Facial Flex Facial Exercise and Toning Kit. We figure, "Why not? Our jowls could use some tautening." So it comes in the mail, see—but the first time we use it, something goes wrong. Very, Very wrong. Now we always see the funny side! We're always smiling! Hey—who's up for box office numbers! HAHAHAHAHA!

Until today, we didn't really know Mamma Mia! had any competition for the weekend's gay-readiest cinematic treat, with the most recent evidence stretching the film's ABBA creds to recommend tips for building your own home disco. Classy, no? But a few Dark Knight contrarians are out there, subverting the conventional wisdom ("Is Mamma Mia! the gay Batman?") and giving the musical's loyalists a run for their gay money:

Welcome to another edition of Defamer Attractions, your weekly cheat sheet to everything new and noteworthy at the movies. This is a fairly easy installment for us, as will happen when the most anticipated superhero movie of, like, ever is threatening to run off with the biggest opening weekend, like, ever. As such, knowing that at least half of you are browsing this from a lawn chair in some long, twisting multiplex queue, let's skip the formalities: This weekend features one blockbuster, a melodic bit of counterprogramming, a primate-centric flop-in-the-making and a concert film for the manic depressive in you. As usual, our opinions are our own, but they are burnished to a soft, infallible glow. Off we go!

· Meryl Streep dazzles foreigners with her ability to perform the splits in mid-air, as the early international release of Mamma Mia has audiences around the globe wishing every paternity test could be set to the infectious pop-standards of ABBA. [Variety]
· GLAAD pats ABC on the head for being gays-friendly, but FX is still the most transgender-curious network on basic cable! [Variety]
· Greg Berlanti signs a five-year deal with ABC Studios, where he'll continue to oversee his current three series Brothers & Sisters, Dirty Sexy Money and Eli Stone, while helping the studio in their ongoing mandate to borrow great foreign show ideas. [THR]
· Jon Heder and his identical twin Dan are producing Loudermilk, about "a Napoleon Dynamite-like oddball who becomes contaminated with a substance that gives him what might arguably be considered superpowers." Great World of Sound writer/director Craig Zobel has been hired to attempt to make it not suck. [THR]
· DVD and Blu-ray Disc sales and rentals are doing strongly despite the rest of the economy floating in the Andy Gump. [THR]

There's no two ways about it, Meryl Streep is a national treasure. Even if she appears in forgettable dramas set on beaches, Lindsay Lohan vehicles, and yes, even in the same disastrous film as Hubbard Knight Tom Cruise, we forgive and forget. There are too few cheeky cougars who don’t give a shit about best-dressed lists or husbands in Hollywood these days. So when we caught sight of this image, showing the 58-year old Oscar winner performing the elusive mid-air spread-eagle on the set of Mamma Mia, we even forgave the fact that she’s appearing in Mamma Mia and fell even more in love.

No sooner did the Universal logo appear onscreen than straight men around the world shrugged at the sight of the new Mamma Mia! trailer, a glittering, sensory-overloading hint at this summer's forthcoming tribute to the revolving institutions of ABBA, Meryl Streep, and general gayness.

"An Italian court ordered the animated canary along with Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and his girlfriend Daisy to take the witness stand in a counterfeiting case." [AP]