Poor Disney ... They must have been aching at the thought of their High School Musical franchise coming to an end once number 3 hits the big screen. It's been an insane sensation, and certainly good for both the company and channel. But what do you do when it all comes to an end? You could look for new material, or you could spin it.

Variety reports that Walt Disney Pictures has picked Steven Antin (jerky prep Troy from The Goonies) to write and direct a new musical project for them, which will be produced by Scott Sanders (who recently developed The Color Purple musical). The plot and title are being kept under wraps, but they might as well call it High School Musical 4: The Next Generation. Antin says: "It's a music-driven movie set in a high school, geared toward a Disney audience." Gee, how original.

But we just might get a bit of a breather before it comes out. Antin has finished part of the screenplay, and says that this project is "neck and neck" with Burlesque for filming this fall -- he had written the script, and Diablo Cody spunked it up with a rewrite. Either way, we're not out of the musical woods yet. Stay tuned to see who wins the showdown between burlesque and teen singers!

Burlesque... It's the "good" girl's stripping. At least, these days it is. Teasing, comedy, and lavish costumes, a girl can don some pasties and flaunt herself without the indelible stigma attached to the regular stripper or porn star. It holds weight, class, and a sense of respect. In a recent interview with our Kim Voynar, Diablo Cody mentioned her book about stripping, and Kim politely asked: "Did you do burlesque?" Her answer: "No, I was a hard core stripper, worked at peep shows, did phone sex." Having hit it big in festivals and productions across the country, burlesque has started its attack on film. We already have Darren Grant getting into the theme, and now Screen Gems is cooking up a burlesque musical.

Variety reports that Glass House director Steven Antin has been tapped to helm Burlesque -- a modern musical that will include 12 song-and-dance numbers, like a modern Moulin Rouge!. Oh, and for a bit of trivia: he's the preppy, jerky jock Troy from The Goonies. Antin wrote the script, and then Diablo Cody was brought on to revise it. (I imagine this won't be the last time she's brought on to spruce up a script that includes stripping or burlesque.) The film will follow "a young woman who tries to escape a hollow past and finds it performing in a neo-burlesque club in Los Angeles."

If it seems like surprising material for Antin, who wrote Chasing Papi and Sidney Lumet's Gloria, Variety says he has been writing and directing live burlesque shows for the last ten years. He says: "Neo-burlesque is a contemporary take on the traditional burlesque that derived from vaudeville, with singing, dancing, comedy, and more tease than striptease." Clint Culpepper, Screen Gems president, says he convinced Antin to write a spec script after seeing his first show and continued: "This will be a sexy, music-filled film set in a provocative and artistic world." But who will they get to lead it? Any suggestions?