Okay, let's see?

There are a bunch of great roles in this show. James Naughton was terrific in the Broadway revival (still playing), but the part of Billy Flynn was originally played by Jerry Orbach, who is a true musical theater guy, despite his ensconcement on LAW AND ORDER (we're not even going to bother linking to it, you should know what it is - oh, okay, here's a link to Law & Order - The First Year, which Jerry's in, along with lots of other great New York actors).

Jerry started in musical theater, and created roles such as Julian Marsh in 42ND STREET, as well as El Gallo in THE FANTASTICKS. Jerry's a real New York actor, and it's too bad he's not in the movie. Of course, he's on television fourteen times a day in LAW AND ORDER, so how would he find the time? Oh right, those are repeats. Sorry. ;-)

You can actually hear Jerry singing on this page, and pick up the original off-Broadway cast recording that he's on if you like it. For the truly obsessed, there is the Japanese Tour album from 1993 - hey, you never know.

This time around, Billy Flynn is going to be played by Richard Gere. We have no idea if he can sing or not. We're sure they would never have put him in the movie if he can't sing (was that lightning striking next to us? Again?).

Playing Velma Kelly is Catherine Zeta-Jones, who we thought was going to play Rita Hayworth in a Broadway musical at some point. Who knows, maybe she still will. Despite marrying Michael Douglas (actually, we don't hold that against her) and doing those stupid T-Mobile commercials (okay, that we hold against her), she's a very talented actress and very, very sexy. Apparently, she also has a dance background, so what the heck. Should be interesting.

Playing Roxie Hart, which is debatably the most important role in the show - sorry, the movie - is Renee Zellweger. Now we were a bit surprised, but remembered that no one thought she could act and she proved them wrong, plus she had the nerve to gain a bunch of weight for Bridget Jones's Diary, which took some guts, particularly when she wears that bunny outfit and her cellulite is popping out? Dang. So maybe she can sing and dance.

Now we have a weird one. Queen Latifah as Mama Morton. We thought Rosie O'Donnell was supposed to do this part, but that was a looong time ago - like, a month or two at least. Besides, Rosie's fun, but she's not a great singer. The Queen can sing, although she's mostly known as a rapper. We like her, but aren't all that sure about the casting choice. Maybe it'll work.

Amos Hart, the put-upon husband of Roxie Hart (note: apologies for the mix up [we had said that Amos was married to Velma], and thanks to Scooter for pointing this out in the forums), is played by John C. Reilly, and that makes some sense, although he's a little bit too young. Joel Grey was great in this role in the Broadway version, but he's not really enough of a star to do the part in the movie. We're curious to see what John C. does with it.

There's more of course, including the terrific Christine Baranski; you can get the full list of names at the imdb.

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