Woo-woo-woo! Sean Penn Joins Three Stooges, Awaits Jim and Benicio

Penn attached to play Larry Fine, while Benicio Del Toro and Jim Carrey are in talks to play the Howard brothers

By Natalie Finn Mar 25, 2009 10:22 PMTags
Three Stooges, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Jim CarreyJasonMerritt/Getty Images, Tony Barson/Getty Images, Todd Williamson/Getty Images

The Farrelly brothers have lined up more than just a few nyukleheads for their next picture.

If the casting gods align, a bowl-cut Benicio Del Toro will be sticking his fingers in the eyes of a puffed-up Jim Carrey, while a frowsy-haired Sean Penn watches on in Bobby and Peter Farrelly's update of The Three Stooges.

Del Toro and Carrey are in talks to play brothers Moe and Curly Howard in the film, which will not be a biopic, but rather a slapstick comedy based on the short films the trio made for Columbia Pictures in the 1930s and '40s.

Per Variety, Carrey—smartly sticking with the funny scripts for now—is already planning to pack on 40 pounds to play the jelly-bellied, put-upon Curly, the main target of Moe's slaphappiness and the foil for the majority of the Stooges' most wince-inducing antics.

Penn is already on board to play  Larry Fine—for some, the unsung hero of the Stooges.

Production is expected to kick off this fall with an eye on a 2010 release date. The Farrellys, who will direct the film for MGM, also cowrote the script.

No word on whether Javier Bardem or Mickey Rourke—or perhaps Kevin Spacey—is in talks to play Shemp.