Hugh Jackman has sung and danced on Broadway and on TV award shows, but soon he’ll do it on the big screen. The Greatest Showman on Earth tells the story of legendary circus promoter P.T. Barnum, focusing on both his life in the spotlight and his infatuation with performer Jenny Lind, “the Swedish Nightingale.” The life of the man who once noted “There’s a sucker born every minute” was previously fodder for the Broadway musical Barnum, but Showman will be a brand-new work, featuring a script by Jenny Bicks (Sex and the City) and new songs by gay-vague pop singer Mika. Producer Laurence Mark (Showgirls) is putting it all together, and Anne Hathaway –who sang at the Oscars with Jackman – is being eyed to play Lind. Romeo is expecting at least three rings worth of entertainment – and anti-circus PETA protests – when Showman hits screens in 2010.

The Devil Wears Prada scene-stealer Emily Blunt will get buttoned up to reenact the early days of the reign of Queen Victoria in the new film The Young Victoria. This costume drama looks to be a breakout movie for gay French-Canadian filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallée, whose film C.R.A.Z.Y. – about a queer kid growing up in a nutty family in the 1960s and ’70s – was a huge hit and award winner in its native country. Victoria has prestige coming out of its antimacassars: Oscar winner Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park) wrote the script, and the supporting cast includes Jim Broadbent, Miranda Richardson, Paul Bettany and Rupert Friend (Chéri). Premiering at the Toronto Film Festival in September, The Young Victoria is no doubt poised to hit Oscar-bait season with a splash when it debuts in U.S. cinemas later this year.

Remember those brilliant fake trailers in Grindhouse for the holiday slasher movie Thanksgiving and other exploitation delights like Werewolf Women of the SS? Well, one of those coming attractions is making the leap from tongue-in-cheek parody to real movie with the announcement that Robert Rodriguez is making Machete, starring brutish character actor Danny Trejo as a ladies man and knife-wielding badass. Rodriguez has lined up an extraordinarily eclectic cast, including lesbian icon Michelle Rodriguez (no relation), post-lesbian tabloid fixture Lindsay Lohan, Don Johnson, Jessica Alba (who appeared in Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City), Cheech Marin, Jeff Fahey, Steven Seagal and, yes, Robert DeNiro. (Marin and Fahey also appeared in the original Machete trailer in Grindhouse.) This sounds like it’s got the potential to be one of 2010’s most oddball releases – and maybe it will inspire Hostel’s Eli Roth to finally make Thanksgiving.

“Noah’s Arc” is no longer with us, and with its departure went TV’s only gay black series – until now. Maurice Jamal has created “Friends & Lovers,” a spin-off of his feature film Ski Trip, and it’s an L.A.–based soap about a group of frisky friends that includes everything from a sex-mad lesbian to a closeted professional athlete on the DL. “Friends” boasts an impressive cast, including the goddess herself Jackée Harry, “Mad TV” alum Debra Wilson, Terrell Carter (Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns) and BET reality star Ray Cunningham, whose stint on “College Hill” made him the network’s first openly gay personality. It’s always a good thing when a gay creator can make a show relating to GLBT issues, particularly tackling stories about queers of color. Friends & Lovers is currently being shopped to networks – and Romeo hears a deal is this close – but should find a broadcast home by 2010.

One thing you can definitely say about visionary gay filmmaker Todd Haynes is that he’s unpredictable, bouncing from the chillingly unsettling acclaimed ’90s drama “Safe” to the Douglas Sirk homage Far From Heaven to the Dylan biopic fantasia “I’m Not There.” Now he’s tackling an old-school gay favorite, writing and directing an HBO miniseries of “Mildred Pierce.” The James M. Cain novel was indelibly brought to the screen in the 1940s with Joan Crawford in the lead role – it’s the movie that won Mommie Dearest her Oscar – and now Kate Winslet will play the striving greasy-spoon entrepreneur who’s brought down by a mean, ungrateful daughter. And it’s a safe bet that Haynes’ version will hew closer to the too-hot-for-the-Hays-Code novel than the first film, so Romeo is counting the days until this new “Mildred’ moves into the pop culture landscape.

If gay director Michael Sucsy could make Drew Barrymore sound exactly like “Little Edie” Beale in the acclaimed HBO movie Grey Gardens, then he can make Jennifer Aniston sound like she can sing. At least that seems to be the idea behind The Goree Girls, which will star Aniston in the true-life story of female prison inmates who formed a country-western ensemble in the 1940s. Aniston will do her own singing for the film, and the one-time “Friends” star will also learn how to play the dobro (a resonator guitar). If Sucsy could get a passable Tea for Two out of Barrymore and Jessica Lange for Grey Gardens, he’ll no doubt elicit some sweet vocalizing from Aniston for The Goree Girls, warbling its way onto screens in 2010 – and, with a little luck, taking Faith Hill down a peg or two on the country charts.

Singer Will Young became a megastar in the United Kingdom (and a cult fave among American gays) as the first winner of that country’s “American Idol”-spawning “Pop Idol.” And while his coming out nabbed him even more headlines, it didn’t affect his pop career much. Next step was, of course, acting. (Because if Mariah can keep getting work in movies, anyone can, right?) After his well-received appearance in Mrs. Henderson Presents, Young is now set to do his first Agatha Christie whodunit, starring in a new British TV production of “The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side,” opposite “Absolutely Fabulous” star Joanna Lumley. Old movie fans will remember The Mirror Crack’d as a 1980 theatrical feature starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, Kim Novak and Angela Lansbury (as Miss Marple). This latest incarnation of the mystery – about murders on a movie set – could air in the U.K. before the end of 2009.

Since real reality-show celebs never seem to want to let go of their 15 minutes of fame, why should their animated counterparts be any different? Comedy Central has announced The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie!, a direct-to-DVD feature about politically incorrect cartoon characters living in a “Big Brother”-style house. When one character notices they can now all curse without being bleeped, the cast realizes that the show has been canceled, leading them to fight to get back on the air. The series’ cast includes gay actor Jack Plotnick (Girls Will Be Girls), who provides the voice of Xandir, a video-game prince who doesn’t seem quite ready to acknowledge he’s a homosexual, even though it’s painfully obvious to everyone else in both his universe and ours. The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie! will hit your Netflix queue in 2010.