Farrellys bring Three Stooges to MGM (VAR, THR)

By Nancy Tartaglione-Vialatte

Peter and Bobby Farrelly’s Three Stooges project has been revived by MGM. The brothers, who spent five years at Warner Bros. trying to make a Stooges movie, will polish the script they wrote with Michael Cerrone and will direct the film. MGM has tagged Nov. 20, 2009 as a release date.

The release date will pit the Stooges against Guy Ritchie’s Robert Downey Jr. starrer "Sherlock Holmes" and the animated "Planet 51."

The Farrellys will produce with Conundrum partner Bradley Thomas and Charlie Wessler. C3 Entertainment’s Earl and Robert Benjamin will be exec producers, say the trades.

In acquiring the film rights to the Stooges from Warners, MGM is in a sense bringing them home. The studio showcased the comedy trio in shorts and features as early as 1933.

The revival of the project was, says Variety, down to the enthusiasm of MGM Worldwide Motion Picture Group chairman Mary Parent. With Parent, the Farrellys have worked out a blueprint for a $45 million budget comedy that will be either PG or PG-13 and feature the slap-happy, low-tech comedy prevalent in the Stooges shorts.

"It’s not a biopic. It takes place in present day, and they look, dress and sound exactly like the Stooges," Peter Farrelly told Variety. "When the economy started turning, we felt like the world could use a Stooges slapfest. Bobby and I haven’t done a real physical comedy in a while, and it’s the most exciting thing we could think of now, to have people go to the movie, see some great slapstick fun family humor."

Farrelly said that an "American Idol"-like search will be conducted to find Curly, the most physically gifted member of the trio. Auditions will be held in three or four cities and a finalist will be chosen in Los Angeles. A second contest will also be held to find several comedy shorts to precede the film. For the role of Moe, The Hollywood Reporter says rumors of A-list "stunt" casting, with such names as Russell Crowe and Mel Gibson have been floated in the past.

Variety says the film will be structured similarly to the shorts, as a feature storyline plays out over three installments that run between 25 and 30 minutes each. The Hollywood Reporter, however, says there will be four installments of 20 minutes each.