We thought we’d dreamt the whole thing, but today’s news that Stanley Tucci has joined the cast of Burlesque - the musical that will bring Christina Aguilera and Cher together, like some hideous oversinging version of The Gatekeeper and The Keymaster – confirms that it is, actually, a terrifying and possibly apocalyptic reality.
Of course, Tucci brings a certain element of class to anything he’s in. But even he’ll have his work cut out with Steve Antin’s film, in which Cher’s burlesque club owner takes Aguilera’s big-voiced, golden-hearted small-town girl under her wing, with results we’ve probably seen a million times before.
Tucci will play the manager of the Sunset Boulevard club.
Now, there’s a chance that we might be being a tad harsh on Burlesque. After all, Aguilera has astonishing pipes, while Cher… well, Aguilera has astonishing pipes. And any musical is only as good as its songs, so we’ll wait and see/hear what director Steve Antin has come up with. If the tunes are toe-tapping and catchy enough, we’ll forgive anything, even the sight of Cher in fishnets. Well, almost anything.*
Antin also wrote the script, which has been given a polish by Susannah Grant, the writer of Erin Brockovich. Donald De Line is producing.
Filming starts on the Screen Gems movie on November 9, with a release set for next Thanksgiving, or November in the Queen’s English.