MGM gets its 'Stooges'

Variety ^ | March 25, 2009 | NA

[buccaneer81]

MGM and the Farrelly brothers are closing in on their cast for "The Three Stooges."

Studio has set Sean Penn to play Larry, and negotiations are underway with Jim Carrey to play Curly, with the actor already making plans to gain 40 pounds to approximate the physical dimensions of Jerome "Curly" Howard.

The studio is zeroing in on Benicio Del Toro to play Moe.

The film is not a biopic, but rather a comedy built around the antics of the three characters that Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Howard played in the Columbia Pictures shorts.

The quest by the Peter and Bobby Farrelly to harness the project spans more than a decade and three studios. They first tried at Columbia, again at Warner Bros., and finally at MGM, where Worldwide Motion Picture Group chairman Mary Parent championed the cause and bought the WB-owned scripts and made a deal with Stooges rights holders C3.

Production will begin in early fall for a release sometime in 2010. The Farrellys, who wrote the script, are producing with their Conundrum partner Bradley Thomas, and Charlie Wessler.

C3 Entertainment principals Earl and Robert Benjamin will be executive producers.

Project will get underway after Penn completes the Asger Leth-directed Universal/Imagine Entertainment drama "Cartel." He hasn't done a comedy since the 1989 laffer "We're No Angels."

The Farrellys have long had their eyes on Del Toro to play Moe. Del Toro, who's coming off "Che," showed comic chops in the Guy Ritchie-directed "Snatch."

The surprise is the emergence of Carrey to play Curly. Howard established the character as a seminal physical comedian, from the first time he appeared in the first Stooges short in 1934 until he suffered a stroke on the set in 1946.

[buccaneer81]

A movie that shouldn't be made. Howard, Fine and Howard are spinning in their graves.

[DManA]

Going WO WO WO WO WO WO!!

[Lurker]

Studio has set Sean Penn to play Larry,

YGTBFKM.....

[Nachum]

Not really. LOL. They would have been the first ones to tell the actors to take the money.

[Constitution Day]

NOOOOOOOOOOO!

[massgopguy]

BOMBARD THE FARRELY BROTHERS! THE THREE STOOGES WERE GREAT AMERICANS WHO LAMPOONED HITLER! PENN’S FATHER LEO WAS A HITLER SUPPORTER!

[vladimir998]

Sean Penn as Larry.

Poor Larry Fine.

[Rennes Templar]

S”tudio has set Sean Penn to play Larry, “

Forget about it.

[dfwgator]

Mel Gibson would have been the perfect Moe, and he is in real life obsessed with the Stooges.

[NewJerseyJoe]

Therefore, to be possess'd with double pomp,
To guard a title that was rich before,
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

[buccaneer81]

They would have been the first ones to tell the actors to take the money.

Man did those guys get hosed. For the 20+ years under contract to the studio, they each made $20,000 a year. Big money during the depression, but they never got a raise.

[Constitution Day]

(Penn) hasn't done a comedy since the 1989 laffer "We're No Angels."

Could it be because he's an arrogant, unfunny, crashing bore?

Naaah.

[Chet 99]

I kind of doubt that. They replaced the third stooge whenever they needed to. There wasn’t much sentimentality on their part.

[vladimir998]

There was this interesting tidbit at Wikipedia:

In a 2004 New Yorker feature on the Farrelly Brothers’s attempt to write a script for a new Three Stooges movie, Peter Farrelly offered his theory of Stooge appreciation: “Growing up, first you watched Curly, then Moe, and then your eyes got to Larry. He’s the reactor, the most vulnerable. Five to fourteen, Curly; fourteen to twenty-one, Moe. Anyone out of college, if you’re not looking at Larry, you don’t have a good brain.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Fine#Posthumous_fame

[paul in cape]

I don’t get Carrey as Curley. My choice was Michael Chiklas, Vic Mackey on The Shield. He was on the radio in Boston a few months ago right before the final episode, and said he was speaking to the brothers about the project. Bid Stooges fan. Maybe Jim Carrey drops out.

[freekitty]

And a traitor.

[buccaneer81]

Mel Gibson would have been the perfect Moe, and he is in real life obsessed with the Stooges.

Jorge Garcia, (Hugo "Hurley" Reyes from "Lost") should get the Curley role.

[njslim]

Actually they replaced Curly (real name Jerome) after he
suffered a disabling stroke in 1946 with Shemp (his brother
aka Samuel). Shemp died of massive heart attack in 1954
Was replaced first by Joe Besser aka Curly Joe then by
Joe De Rita for the 3 Stooges films

[Nachum]

they each made $20,000 a year.

Yeah. And they had to work with lions too!

[nesnah]

The film is a complete waste of time and will flop.

There will always be only one set of Stooges and ya just cannot really improve on perfection.

Just like the Little Rascals movie and few years ago: look-a-like casting was OK, but the movie sucked and the kids just mouthed the lines.