A start date has been set for the big screen version of THE THREE STOOGES. The Farrelly Brothers must now get their ass in gear for March 14th.
There’s sort of a slight snag though…there’s no cast. What in the world happened to everyone that was on board? Carrey had to drop out due to the physical toll it was taking on his body. Penn left the project due to MGM’s financial problems. As for Benicio Del Toro, no one knows. The Brothers still feel strong about the project despite this issue. Peter Farrelly told Deadline that they will get through with a terrific script which will be made for a reasonable budget. They will begin casting immediately. The script was penned by Mike Cerrone (ME, MYSELF & IRENE). The Stooges are also now in the hands of Fox.
The film 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. The comedy follows them to adulthood and is very much in the spirit of the original shorts, in which the blue collar bumblers got the best of the wealthy society matrons that tried to exploit them. Oh, yeah, there will be the non-stop physical comedy that is the trademark of the Stooges franchise.”
Peter Farrelly spoke further about casting, “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 Flintstones. You’ve got to be Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard, and that could be a major movie star or an unknown.”
The Brothers are eyeing Atlanta as a possible location for filming. The movie will follow the same format of the original shorts that were made over a period of 24 years. It will be divided into 3 segments, 27 minutes long, and will use the signature theme songs from the shorts. The goal is to make the film PG and incorporate the physical comedy.
Farrelly notes this as a different venture for the team, “There will be non-stop slapping, more in the tone of Dumb and Dumber than anything else we’ve done. Our goal is 85 minutes of laughs in a film that will be very respectful of who the Stooges were. It’s by far the riskiest project we’ve ever done, without question, but it is also the one closest to our hearts.”