Three Stooges Director Peter Farrelly Slaps Down Casting Rumors & Spills Plot Details

Remember how Curly from The Three Stooges would get really frustrated, scrunch up his face, and start barking? That’s kind of how the Farrelly brothers feel after all the erroneous reporting about their long-gestating film based on the three classic knuckleheads.

The latest rumor — that they’ve cast Jackass star Johnny Knoxville as Moe and Saturday Night Live’s Andy Samberg as Larry — is untrue. And annoying. “You don’t want people to think ‘they already cast that thing,’ because we haven’t,” Peter Farrelly tells Entertainment Weekly. “It’s wide open to everybody.”

Peter and his brother Bobby have been developing the project for nearly a decade, and for a while Sean Penn was interested in a role, along with Benicio Del Toro and Jim Carrey. “That was real. Sean Penn wanted to do it and when Sean wanted to do it, everyone wanted to do it. But he is extremely involved in Haiti right now,” Farrelly said. “We heard that if we waited a couple years, we could probably get him, but we’ve already waited a few years.”

Now the Fox project is aiming toward a mid-April start in Atlanta. Once Penn was out, Farrelly says, Carrey — who worked with the brothers on Dumb & Dumber and Me, Myself & Irene – also left the film. Farrelly says he likes Knoxville and Samberg, but they haven’t auditioned, and the Internet rumors that they’ve already landed the roles are false. “Right now, I don’t know. There is no leader in the clubhouse,” he says.

The Three Stooges movie they envision would be a fictional comedy — not a bio-pic of the original actors (if anyone still thought that). Instead, they intend to take the Moe, Larry and Curly personas and place them in a new story. “It’s The Three Stooges just like the [old shorts],” Farrelly says. “They’re going to look the same, dress the same, sound the same, act the same, with the same sound effects.”

The film will be structured in three acts, each a stand-alone story like the original episodes, but loosely connected. Most of it will be set in the present day, except for the first act, which begins 40 years ago. “A car whips by an orphanage, throws a duffel bag out its window and keeps going,” Farrelly says. “A nun sees the duffel and opens it up, and a little baby hand comes out and — Boink! — hits her in the eye. So that first episode is them growing up in the orphanage.”

The second act picks up with them as adults, in their early 40s, leaving the orphanage and heading out on the road together. After various misadventures, the trio splits up and the third act starts with them alone — and finding that all the slapping, eye-gouging, and head-bonking isn’t a useful way of dealing with the outside world.

“Suddenly, when Moe hits somebody he doesn’t know, that’s assault and battery,” Farrelly says, laughing.

Despite the brother-on-brother-on-brother violence, the Farrellys will aim for a PG rating by keeping the smacks and pokes “cartoony.” As for casting, they want actors who are willing to give themselves over to impressions of the numbskull characters created by Moe Howard, Curly Howard and Larry Fine.

“I don’t want ‘somebody’s version of Moe,’” Farrelly says. “It’s not like Batman where you can have your own take on Batman.”

Jim Carrey Feared Three Stooges Movie Would Have Damaged His Health

Jim Carrey has opened up about his decision to quit the Three Stooges movie - he feared gaining weight to play chubby character Curly would cause him drastic health problems.

The funnyman began binging on desserts after signing on to play the larger-than-life Stooge, opposite Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro in the long-awaited film.

But Carrey admits he was forced to pull out when he realised he wouldn't be able to lose the pounds he'd piled on.

He tells MTV.com, "I think it's dead. It's dead at least to me.

"There wasn't any creative difficulties that led to this exit, but rather the weight gain for the role. For me, I don't really want to do anything halfway, and I don't feel like a fat suit does it. I started experimenting with it a little bit, and I gained 35, 40 pounds. I wanted to gain another 30, 40.

"When you're (Robert) De Niro in your 20s or early 30s, you can kind of come back from that (weight gain). It's a tough thing to come back from when you're upwards of 30. Your body can't carry it or you can have a cardiac arrest."

Penn also bowed out of the project last year, citing personal reasons.

No additional information is available on the movie's filming status.

Sean Penn Goes Back to The Three Stooges

Sean Penn has backtracked on his decision to leave the Three Stooges - the actor has rejoined the upcoming film just months after dropping out.

Penn was due to star in the movie based on 1930s comedy icons Moe Howard, Curly Howard and Larry Fine, which will be helmed by directing duo the Farrelly brothers.

The Oscar-winner had been lined up to play Larry opposite Benicio Del Toro as Moe, and Jim Carey, who was reportedly in talks to play Curly.

But Penn quit the project over the summer after reconciling with wife Robin Wright Penn, vowing to take a break from movies to help fix his marriage. The couple finally called it quits in August after Wright Penn filed divorce papers and now it seems her spouse is throwing himself back into work.

Bobby Farrelly has confirmed Penn is back on board the Three Stooges project, but they're still looking to fill the role of Curly, according to the Boston Herald.

Farrelly tells the newspaper, "We got him (Penn) back. He always said he wanted to do it after, you know, taking care of his family."

Hollywood Stars Visit Havana

Hollywood came to Havana on Thursday as Cuban writers and artists gave an award to Benicio del Toro, star of the 2008 movie "Che," in a ceremony attended by fellow actors Bill Murray, Robert Duvall and James Caan.

Murray stole the show when he improvised a version of the song "As Time Goes By," then jokingly passed around a hat, asking for money.

Their presence lent a bit of Hollywood glitz to warming U.S.-Cuba relations, and may have been the precursor for the making of a film in Cuba.

A spokesman for the group said del Toro was in town for the award, but that Murray, Duvall and Caan were working on a "research project.

When asked if he and his pals might make a movie on the communist-led island, del Toro told reporters: "That depends on the governments, on the American government."

Because of the long-standing U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, Americans have been forbidden, with some exceptions, from visiting the island or doing most business there.

Hollywood stars such as Robert Redford, Arnold Schwarzenegger and director Steven Spielberg have come to Cuba in the past but cultural exchanges slowed due to restrictions imposed by former U.S. President George W. Bush.

The group's spokesman said they were traveling under a license granted by the U.S. Treasury Department.

U.S. President Barack Obama offered earlier this year to "recast" relations with Cuba, which have been sour since the 1959 revolution that put Fidel Castro in power.

Obama has lifted travel restrictions for Cuban Americans and restarted immigration talks with Cuba that were suspended under Bush.

Last week, the United States said a Bush-era news ticker on the U.S. Interests Section building in Havana, which the Cuban government viewed as an affront, had been turned off.

Puerto Rican-born del Toro won acclaim here last year for his portrayal of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, an Argentine who fought alongside Castro in the Cuban revolution, in the title role of the two-part biopic "Che," directed by American Steven Soderbergh.

The International Tomas Gutierrez Alea Prize, named for the late Cuban director who made the 1994 film "Strawberry and Chocolate," "makes me feel small and proud at the same time," del Toro said. "It's an honor to win this prize."

The Three Stooges: Penn, Carrey and Del Toro

Sean Penn, Jim Carrey and Benicio Del Toro have been lined up to star in a new movie based on 1930s comedy icons The Three Stooges.

Director siblings the Farrelly Brothers are behind the new project, about the slapstick antics of Moe and Curly Howard and Larry Fine.

Oscar winner Penn is expected to play Larry, with Carrey and Del Toro taking on the roles of Curly and Moe, respectively, reports Daily Variety.

The project marks 48-year-old Penn's first comedy movie since 1989's We're No Angels.