There are pricesly
102 days until filming finally begins in Atlanta on
The Farrelly Brothers' long-gestated big screen comedy version of
The Three Stooges - and with
Jim Carrey &
Sean Penn long ago exiting, and the availability of
Benicio Del Toro currently up-in-the-air, the director siblings may just have to work over the Christmas holidays to find their slapstick trio. An approval of MGM's pre-packaged bankruptcy has allowed the project to go to Fox, who have set a March 14th start date. According to
Deadline; 'The picture takes place when the trio are dumped out as newborns at the door of an orphanage, and they are talking with
Richard Jenkins to play the head nun who is terrorized by the precocious Stooges'. Jenkins, really? Wow. Just goes to show whether through a great script (written by The Farrelly's and Me, Myself and Irene scribe
Mike Cerrone) or plain nostalgia for an American pop-culture landmark, just about any respected actor can be attracted to this film. The PG, family friendly goofball will be an anthology picture of three short 27 minute physical comedy segments, using all three signature songs that according to the Farrelly's 'will be more will be
non-stop slapping, more in the tone of
Dumb and Dumber than anything else we've done" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jocRd-aajW0 The project has the blessing of the Stooges estate, some of who are producers on the film. So who to cast? Well presuming Del Toro can still be reached (which is still kinda awesome to think he would do this), I suppose they should look at
Paul Giamatti or
Larry David to play Larry and well, although it's obvious, what about
Zach Galifianakis as Curly?
The Farrellys have been trying to crack The Stooges since the last century and after Columbia, WB and MGM - Fox is the fourth studio of trying. They came the closest with MGM a few years ago with Carrey, Penn and Del Toro but for reasons outside of the Farrelly's control (MGM's money issues) - the project was shelved. Says one of the Farrelly's
"The script is ready to go, and we are opening up these roles to the world right now... We'll make it with the best possible people. Our feeling is that no star is too big to audition and no matter who it is, we're going to have to see him in the role. This is not The Flinstones, you've got to be Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard and that could be a major movie star or an unknown."