The success of Brokeback Mountain seems to have everyone in Hollywood scrambling to find the next Big Gay Hit. Hot on the heels of yesterday's news about Adam Sandler and Kevin James pretending to fall in love comes word that The Dreyfus Affair - a novel by Peter Lefcourt - has been optioned by producer Andrew Lang, who has hired Lefcourt to write the adaptation. The novel tells the story not of the French military scandal but of two baseball players (one of them married to a beauty queen) who fall in love, and what happens with the relationship goes public. Much like I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, the story has been knocking around for a long time (the book was first optioned in 1992), but due at least in part to its subject matter, it never quite made it into production. According to Lefcourt, the movie was almost made at New Line with Ben Affleck and Don Cheadle, but things fell apart when Affleck ran off to make Pearl Harbor and further dismantle his career.

The Dreyfus Affair is a truly wonderful book, filled with romance, humor, and optimism. Unlike Brokeback Mountain, it's much more interested in the positive elements of its central relationship - at times, it has an almost fairy tale tone akin to that found in the indie gay flick Beautiful Thing - than on the Pain and Lonliness of Being Gay. Because of that, it's likely that the movie will be much, much harder for mainstream America to handle; it'll be fascinating to watch how this project is viewed as/if it goes forward.