Big-Top Jackman: Hugh Jackman will play the lead in Fox’s The Greatest Showman on Earth, a movie musical based on the life of circus magnate P.T. Barnum. It’ll be produced by Laurence Mark and scripted by Jenny Bicks, both of whom helped with Jackman’s opening number at February’s Oscars. Mika is in talks to compose the music, and the lead female role is being written for Anne Hathaway. Hey, remember a year ago when Fox was hell-bent on painting Jackman as a “rough-hewn Clint Eastwood type,†lest insinuations to the contrary damage his box-office appeal? Now he’s headlining a musical, and a comedy about a makeup salesman. Nice work, Adam Lambert! [Variety]
Suckered Again: Having miraculously survived her appearance in Zack Snyder’s Watchmen, Carla Gugino will press her luck by appearing in the director’s next movie, Sucker Punch, whose plot, we’ll remind you, sounds like something Terry Gilliam came up with while battling a fever (a girl and her friends “enter an alternate reality†to plan her escape from a mental asylum before she can be lobotomized). Gugino will play Mrs. Schultz, an adult employed at the asylum, probably because nobody gave her that Tony she deserved for Desire Under the Elms. [Variety]
It’s a Trap!: Charlize Theron and Sam Worthington have signed on for The Tourist, a Bharat Nalluri–directed remake of the 2005 French thriller Anthony Zimmer, about a female Interpol agent (Theron, presumably) who uses an American tourist (Worthington, by process of elimination) to bait a wanted criminal who’s also her former lover. Worthington will replace Tom Cruise, who was circling Tourist before he decided to make Wichita with Cameron Diaz instead. What might have been! [HR]
Twins:Mandeville Films and Top Cow Productions have announced plans to develop a movie version of Joshua Hale Fialokov’s 2008 Top Cow comic Alibi. The plot revolves around a socialite whose public high jinks serve as the perfect cover for his secret twin brother, an assassin for the government. The film aims to recreate the success of last year’s Wanted, based on another Top Cow comic, so don’t be surprised when Angelina Jolie is cast as James McAvoy’s twin brother. [Variety]
Badly Drawn Boy: Steve Zahn will delay the release of his rap album to play the dad in Fox 2000’s film adaptation of Jeff Kinney’s graphic novel Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which follows Greg Heffley, a middle schooler struggling to fit in among his classmates. Greg’s biggest stumbling block? Embarrassment over his dad’s recent Letterman appearance, we assume. [Variety]
Renny Harlin will direct an untitled drama on the five-day 2008 conflict between Russia and Georgia during which Georgian troops attacked South Ossetia. The plot is being kept under wraps for “security reasons,†but will allegedly center on an American reporter and his cameraman caught in the crossfire. Hey, for all we know, this could be Sacha Baron Cohen’s Brüno follow-up. [BFDMemo/Variety]