It seems like the idea of a Three Stooges biopic has been floating around Hollywood for decades.
The latest team in development on this project was the Farrelly brothers, who appeared to have Sean Penn lined up as Larry, Benicio del Toro as Moe and Jim Carrey in the role of Curly.
Since that casting was announced, Sean Penn was reported to have dropped out, with Paul Giamatti being mentioned as a possible replacement. Now Carrey (who brought another famed comedian to the big screen in Milos Forman’s underrated Andy Kaufman biopic, Man on the Moon), has left the project.
Speaking to MTV (the full interview is embedded below), Carrey has revealed that his reasons for leaving are more to do with the physical restraints of the part:
“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. It’s a tough thing to come back from when you’re upwards of 30 (laughs).”
So where does that leave the project? We know that Peter (one half of the directing siblings) is currently in production on his own feature, so maybe they’ve finally put to bed any plans to shoot this.
It’s a shame if that’s the case, as this project had the potential to steer the brothers in a slightly more interesting and challenging direction to that of their usual comedy material.
