`Brokeback' sings, `Fair Lady' redux, `Nine' lives on

So much information to digest.First comes news that Annie Proulx's extraordinary short story, "Brokeback Mountain," which was turned into a less extraordinary but admirable film, is now becoming an opera. New York City Opera has commissioned American composer Charles Wuorinen to create an opera based on "Brokeback" for the 2013 spring season. I, for one, can't wait to hear Ennis' beleaguered wife sing that sure-to-be-hit song "Jack Nasty."Why, oh, why? Columbia Pictures and CBS Films are going to remake My Fair Lady with producers Duncan Kenworthy and Cameron Mackintosh.Yes, the movie is going to be a musical and will feature the famed Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe score, but the gimmick this time out will be on-location shooting rather than in studio sound stages. They also say the film will will incorporate more of George Bernard Shaw's original play, Pygmalion.There have been rumors that Keira Knightley has been approached about playing Eliza Doolittle. That's all well and good (if she can't sing, Marni Nixon, who dubbed Audrey Hepburn in the movie, is still available, bless her heart), but can we please cast Julie Andrews as Mrs. Higgins?Rob Marshall's movie musical follow-up to Chicago (Memoirs of a Geisha doesn't count because it wasn't a musical) is going to be Maury Yeston and Arthur Kopit's Nine, and Daniel Day-Lewis has been confirmed to star as Italian film director Guido Contini. Day-Lewis replaces Javier Bardem, who had to drop out because he refused to get rid of that terrifying bowl cut from No Country for Old Men (kidding -- he dropped out because he's exhausted). Also in the cast, playing the women in Guido's life are Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Sophia Loren, Nicole Kidman and Judi Dench.