VARIETY: 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. MORE
LARRYFINE.COM: He was born Louis Feinberg to a Jewish family (his father a jeweler) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the corner of 3rd and South Streets. The building there is now a restaurant, and it houses a small Stooge museum. When Louis was a child, he burned his arm with some of his father’s acid, which was used to test whether or not gold was real, mistaking it for a cool drink (The child had the bottle to his lips when the father noticed. In a panic, the father slapped the bottle from Larry’s hand, splashing the child’s forearm with acid). He received violin training to help strengthen his damaged muscles. This talent would be observed in many of the Stooges’ films; in fact, when all three are seen playing fiddles onscreen, only Larry is actually playing his instrument, while the others are pantomiming. To further strengthen his arm, Larry took up boxing as a teenager. He fought and won one professional bout, but this career was put to an immediate stop by his father, who was opposed to Larry’s fighting in public 1. His experience in boxing, however, no doubt served him well in his later career as a Stooge. MORE