Under normal circumstances, the casting of an actor to play Martin Luther King, Jr., in Selma, the latest project from gay Oscar nominated director Lee Daniels, would be major news. And once the movie is finally shot, cut and released, David Oyelowo, the British actor who’ll play the legendary civil rights leader and who’ll also soon appear in George Lucas’s Red Tails, will surely see his profile rise in this country. But for now you probably have no idea who he is, and so the real casting news for this movie is about Hugh Jackman. He’s going to play a redneck sheriff in the story, which will center around the 1965 marches staged by King in Selma, Alabama, and he will almost certainly not be pouring entire buckets of warm water over his sweat-glistened torso in this one. But that’s just a hunch. They’re still getting the financing together anyway, so you’ve got some waiting on your hands, either way.

Want more vampires in love? Of course you do. Your job as a member of consumer culture requires you to enjoy astonishing amounts of the thing that’s really popular right now. So that’s what you’re going to get. Welcome, then, Vamps, the new film from Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Clueless writer/director Amy Heckerling. It’s sort of a young “Sex and the City”-meets-glamorous-neck-biting and will star Alicia Silverstone and Krysten Ritter (“She’s Out of My League”) as two young lady-bloodsuckers in New York, both of whom have to choose between immortality and love. It will co-star Sigourney Weaver (it’s really about time she got to play a vampire, her lesbian icon status was in jeopardy after that last Tim Allen comedy) as the leader of a blood dynasty. Look, as long as it’s a comedy and Alicia is allowed to shop some, it probably won’t hurt a bit.

From the It Sure Took Them Long Enough department (and certainly inspired by a certain show about teen choirs) comes “Hellcats,” a pilot from the CW about cheerleading. Starring Aly Michalka as a college girl from the wrong side of the tracks who joins the world of competitive cheering, the series has cast singer-actor Ashley Tisdale as the squad’s intensely ambitious team captain. Tisdale almost single-handedly added all comic relief to the High School Musical franchise (as the intensely ambitious queen of drama club, so yeah, not much stretching here) so this bit of actor-in-the-right-role news feels like a perfect fit. Better yet, it’s for a network that specializes in tart-tongued young things, so we’re certain to see Tisdale finally shed some of her squeaky-cleanliness. And you can go ahead and call it Bring It On: The College Years: The TV Show if you want. That’s what it sounds like to Romeo, too. It also sounds like a damn good time waiting to happen.

In truth, there’s technically nothing truly gay about The Muppets. They’re wholesome and sweet and hilarious. There are openly homosexual Muppets. (Unless you’re talking about Bert and Ernie. And we’ve had our gaydar tripped by Big Bird. And Sweetums. And Miss Piggy is voiced by a man. Okay, The Muppets are super-gay after all.) But they do resonate with everyone’s sense of humor and, more importantly, the human sense of wanting to belong to a big happy group. So the news that The Greatest Muppet Movie of All Time is happening and that puppet-friendly funny guy Jason Segal is not only the main-starring human being but also the script’s co-writer is more exciting than the announcement of a project featuring actual gayness. It just is. Set for 2012, it can’t arrive soon enough, Mayan calendar be darned.

The all-Madonna-song episode is coming up soon (begging the question of who gets to keep Jane Lynch’s cone bra), but this past weekend, “Glee” creator Ryan Murphy, at a Paley Center event in Los Angeles, revealed an even bigger piece of pop-culture news. According to producers, the show reached out to Lady Gaga and she will appear in some capacity before the season ends, with the cast singing at least one of her songs. The theme: the power of theatricality, of course. In what other context would you appropriately place a woman who, on live television, dives into fake pits of fire during a duet with Elton John? Meanwhile, the really important question now will be where the series will go in season two after getting all the biggest names on their “want” list right out of the box? And speaking of Elton John, when’s his cameo?

When you’ve got instant Hollywood power thanks to an Oscar win, it seems like a no-brainer to go after your dream project. And that’s just what Mo’Nique is planning by buying the rights to legendary actress Hattie McDaniel’s life story. McDaniel, the first African-American to win an Academy Award (for playing “Mammy” in Gone With The Wind), was namechecked in Mo’Nique’s acceptance speech, and now Mo’Nique wants to play her in a film project to be directed by her fellow Precious colleague and Oscar nominee Lee Daniels. Daniels already has Selma and Miss Saigon on his plate, so this project could take a few years to make happen. But Mo’Nique radiates power-player/producer already (something maybe to do with that refusal to shave her legs?) so it seems likely she’ll get what she wants eventually.

As Romeo reported earlier, the five-hour HBO miniseries event, Mildred Pierce, to be directed by acclaimed queer filmmaker Todd Haynes, already has its Mildred in Kate Winslet. And now the rest of the cast has been announced for the remake of the dark, classic Joan Crawford film about a hard-working single mother and her never-satisfied daughter. Guy Pearce will play Mildred’s mild-mannered suitor Monty and Evan Rachel Wood will take on the role of Mildred’s mean, spoiled child. Good move, since Wood already gained plenty of experience playing a bad girl in the film Thirteen. Rounding out the cast are Academy Award-nominee Melissa Leo and indie-film vet James Le Gros. Cameras roll in April and (not to jinx the process or anything but) Emmy nominations come later.

Ask any indie rock fan and they’ll tell you that the Magnetic Fields are one of the most important bands of this generation. Don’t know them? Then you’ve never met one-man song-machine Stephen Merritt, the band’s leader and creator of the chamber pop masterpiece 69 Love Songs. Filmmakers Kerthy Fix and Gail O’Hara would like to change that cult status with their recently completed documentary Strange Powers: Stephen Merritt and The Magnetic Fields, which follows Merritt, a man who’s been called “the Cole Porter of his generation,” and the revolving cast of musicians who accompany him when the band performs. Appearing in the doc, alongside main MF collaborator Claudia Gonson, are Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein, Superchunk’s Laura Ballance, writer Sasha Frere-Jones, Peter Gabriel, Kiki & Herb’s Kenny Mellman and Lemony Snicket author (and occasional MF accordionist) Daniel Handler – in other words, a feast for fans and soon-to-be fans. Find it soon at a film festival near you.