In what seems to us like the bizarre result of a round of pop culture Mad Libs, Deadline is reporting that Hugh Jackman (who previously played a stage magician in Christopher Nolan’s underappreciated 2006 film The Prestige) has signed on to star in Aaron Sorkin’s Houdini, a new musical about “the life and death of America’s first superstar,” which is set to debut on Broadway sometime in 2013.

“Rather than being a biography, Houdini, told in a contemporary tone, tells the story of an epic battle that took place between the world’s greatest illusionist and a trio of women, known as ‘Spiritualists,’ who convinced millions of people, including the editors of Scientific American and The New York Times, that they could communicate with the dead,” Sorkin says of the project, which marks his “librettist debut,” and apparently has been kicking around for quite some time now. Danny Elfman was originally working on the music, but has since been replaced by Stephen Schwartz, the man behind Godspell, Pippin, and Wicked.

Given the insane credentials of everyone involved, we’re wondering if there’s any chance that this musical won’t win a Tony. What do you think?

We’ve been reading reviews by New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley for long enough to know that he’s not always a fan of celebrities’ work on Broadway; perhaps that is what’s at the root of the homophobic, oddly-personal piece that he recently filed on Hugh Jackman’s new one-man show. Maybe he was just pissed to be in the company of the theater’s “largely female audiences”? It’s not clear.

Let us start by saying that the whole “two sides” of Jackman framing of the piece is an idea so played out that it has already been a rather lame SNL sketch. Good, we’re glad that’s out of the way. So aside from Brantley’s stated belief that the actor is “for entertainment purposes, bisexual,” and thus “gleefully comports himself onstage in the manner of what, in less enlightened times, might have been called a flaming queen,” the critic also inexplicably makes an undermining remark about the state of Jackman’s marriage and hints that his loves of musicals could be seen as a red flag.

There’s also this misogynistic little gem toward the end, aimed at the ladies who love Mr. Jackman: “For some women his double-jointedness makes him the perfect platonic lover: part leading-man seducer (who gives you the best sex you never had), part gay best friend (who picks up your spirits by singing show tunes with you).” For the uninitiated, this is a prime example of mansplaining, and that facepalm you’re doing is a totally appropriate response.

If you’re in the mood to have a side of angry outrage with your lunch, then head to the Times’ website to read “How Hugh Jackman’s Two Sides Make Women Swoon.” Unfortunately, we’re not kidding. [via Vulture]

1. Apple has set a new company record by selling one million units of its new iPhone 4S in just 24 hours. Evidently, it really doesn’t matter that it’s not called the iPhone 5. [via Gizmodo]

2. Real Steel — the robot boxing movie that stars Hugh Jackman — dominated the weekend box office despite earning less than kind reviews, taking in $27.3 million in ticket sales. Meanwhile, George Clooney’s political film The Ides of March came in second place with $10.4 million. [via ArtsBeat]

3. Do you care if David Foster Wallace made up part of his his famous cruise piece for Harper’s? Perhaps more importantly, what do you make of Jonathan Franzen spilling the beans on his friend? [via Vulture]

4. “Consumers value the simplicity Netflix has always offered and we respect that. There is a difference between moving quickly — which Netflix has done very well for years—and moving too fast, which is what we did in this case.” – Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings now says that there will be no Qwikster

5. Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker is accusing Beyoncé and her baby bump of plagiarizing some dance sequences in the new video for “Countdown.” As Jezebel points out, this isn’t the first time that the pop star is facing these kind of accusations.

Bonus Buzz: Harvard Is No Longer the World’s Best School

Today at Flavorpill, we discovered that Twitter is even more excited about Beyoncé’s baby news than we are. We were amazed by the subtly of a few of these Stanley Kubrick cinemagraphs. We were obsessed with Gimme Bar, a new visual booksaving service. We wondered if Anne Hathway has the chops to play Fantine opposite of Hugh Jackman’s Jean Valjean. We liked the looks of this redesigned Diet Coke can. We were admittedly way too happy about this Hold Steady cover of Huey Lewis’ “The Power Of Love.” We couldn’t wait to see a new Showtime series from Steven Spielberg based on Stephen King’s 2009 novel Under the Dome. We visited The Shrine of Apple. And finally, we watched some models dressed in Lanvin dance to Pitbull, and found the entire thing surprisingly charming.

Today at Flavorpill, we found out what Anderson Cooper looked like as a little kid thanks to this footage of him wearing a purple wig on a game show. We fell in love with the latest mural from Blu. We were excited to learn that the Library of Congress had launched National Jukebox, which allows you to listen to 10,000 rare historic sound recordings. We chuckled over this post-grad hipster’s guide to inhabitable US cities from our friends at The Rumpus. We were impressed by Rembert Browne, who compiled everything you need to know about 2011′s summer music festivals into a handy Venn diagram. We watched what we’re thinking might be the first Super Mario Brothers-inspired ice skating routine. We were happy to hear that Neil Patrick Harris will be hosting the Tony Awards again this year. We wondered how many more guest stars the producers of The Office are planning to add to the season finale — and more importantly, if Warren Buffet can even act. And finally, we decided based on the newly-released trailer for Real Steel — the forthcoming Hugh Jackman movie about boxing robots — that whoever is deciding what movies get made in Hollywood must have a thing for ’80s Tom Cruise. Lucky us!

1. This is the most exciting news we’ve read in a while: Starting this fall Nickelodeon will air old episodes of shows like Rugrats, Kenan & Kel, Pete & Pete, The Amanda Bynes Show, All That, and Clarissa Explains It All in a new midnight-to-2 am programming block dubbed “The ’90s Are All That.” [via EW]

2. Julie Taymor will be replaced as director of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark by Philip William McKinley, the former director of the Hugh Jackman hit show The Boy from Oz; while she hasn’t technically been banished from working on the project, producers say her role moving forward will be limited. [via NYDN]

3. Today the critics weigh in on the iPad 2, which hits stores tomorrow. David Pogue at the New York Times seems most concerned with how wrong critics were about the original iPad; Walt Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal says it “offers an excellent balance of size, functionality and price”; and Joshua Topolsky from Engadget says while this “thinner, sleeker, faster variant of the original may not be breaking lots of new ground,” it beats most other tablets on the market.

4. By now you’ve probably heard that Vivian Schiller, the president and chief executive of NPR since January 2009, resigned yesterday when a hidden camera video featuring incendiary comments by the network’s fundraising chief surfaced. But the Wall Street Journal gets our vote for best headline on the story: “Video Kills the Radio Czar.”

5. Yesterday’s news that Cap’n Crunch was being forced to retire simply weren’t true. Says an official statement from Quaker Oats: “Reports of Cap’n Crunch’s demise are greatly exaggerated. In fact, we just launched an official Facebook page for Cap’n Crunch. Now that our Cap’n Crunch brand is in the social-media space, our adult consumers can stay up to date on all things Cap’n Crunch.” [via The Daily What]

Bonus link: Stephen Colbert Becomes a Jew for Lent

1. The 2011 Golden Globes nominations have been announced, and Black Swan, Glee, The Social Network, and The Kids Are All Right all scored multiple nods, while The King’s Speech leads the pack with seven. View the full list here.

2. Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Carpenter — who play a brother and sister on Showtime’s Dexter, which has always kind of creeped us out — are filing for divorce after nearly two years of marriage. [via EW]

3. George Clinton says that his signature was forged to clear a sample for two tracks by the Black Eyed Peas, and is now seeking millions in damages for copyright infringement. [via Guardian]

4. Ethan Hawke is in talks to star in a new show on FOX. “Described as a high octane procedural, Exit Strategy centers on a team of five experts associated with the CIA who are deployed when a CIA operation goes bad to extract the ones involved before it’s too late. Hawke would play the team leader, the architect of exit strategy who also empathizes with the people they extract and would rather die than let them get hurt. Each episode would tackle a different crisis in a different country.” [via Deadline]

5. After an attempt to make a grand entrance via harness went bad, a bleeding Hugh Jackman was removed from the set of Oprah in Australia earlier today. But he’s OK! He later returned and carried on with his scheduled interview segment. [via THR]

Bonus link: Top 25 Gawker Passwords

1. Lou Reed has directed Susan Boyle’s music video for her cover of his song “Perfect Day” — the same track that he was wrongfully accused of refusing to allow her to perform on America’s Got Talent. [via Vulture]
2. Hugh Jackman was asked to host this year’s Academy Awards, but he said no because he’s too busy preparing the Wolverine sequel. May we suggest Tina Fey instead? [via Deadline]
3. A newly-released Lil Wayne joined Drake on stage in Las Vegas over the weekend for a performance of “Miss Me.” (video) [via P4K]
4. Planters’ animated mascot Mr. Peanut is getting both a new vintage-inspired look (complete with a gray flannel suit) and a new voice courtesy of Robert Downey, Jr. [via NYT]
5. An upcoming Christie’s auction of the art of Playboy includes 80 photographs, more than a dozen contemporary works, and 24 cartoons, most of which have appeared in the publication. [via Yahoo!]

Bonus link: This Is Tom Cruise Jumping Off the Tallest Skyscraper In the World

Today at Flavorpill, we listened to the first new music from Amy Winehouse in what feels like forever and watched Willow Smith’s television debut performance on Ellen. We got excited by the idea of a new Broadway musical about Houdini that will star Hugh Jackman with a book by Aaron Sorkin and music by Danny Elfman. We wondered how many calories is in Phil Hansen’s “Mona Greasa.” We did our best to figure out these 48 band names rendered as icons. We checked out photos of the Dia de los Muertos festivities in Oaxaca, Mexico. We were creeped out by a piano-playing Marie Antoinette ladyrobot at Versailles. Those eyes! We looked at nine examples of branded environments that mimic the web’s fluidity. We were impressed by Simon Schubert’s incredible folded paper art. And finally, we were reminded by the release of Jimmy McMillan’s “The Rent Is Too Damn High” music video that we still need to go out and vote. Have you?

1. The 22 pieces of custom-made furniture Michael Jackson commissioned for his planned home in London during the This Is It tour (including a leopard-print chair trimmed with ostrich feathers) are going on the auction block. [via Salon]
2. Joaquin Phoenix will presumably be shaving off his crazy person beard to play Edgar Allen Poe in a film adaptation of The Beautiful Cigar Girl by Daniel Stashower. [via The Playlist]
3. The National Book Critics Circle awards were last night, and Hilary Mantel won the fiction award for her Tudor-era novel Wolf Hall which previously scored the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. [via WSJ]
4. Can a comedy that’s being shot by half a dozen different filmmakers turn out funny? With Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Gerard Butler, Elizabeth Banks, Johnny Knoxville, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse also involved, then perhaps. [via Wired]
5. Jay-Z‘s involvement with the controversial Atlantic Yards project has earned him some new enemies in brownstone Brooklyn. [via The Awl]

Coachella giveaway: We use Yahoo! Search to help find the top culture stories of the day. Now we’re giving you the chance to play editor, and you just might win a trip to Coachella.

Use Yahoo! Search to find an interesting link about Michael Jackson, and drop it below in the comments. Our favorite entry will receive a copy of Michael Jackson: This Is It, and more importantly, be entered to win a VIP trip for two to Coachella. Good luck!