"The Three Stooges" in their first film, "Soup to Nuts" in 1930. Actually billed as "Ted Healy and His Stooges" with Moe's brother Shemp (l.) as the original third Stooge. (Fox Film Corporation)

Sean Penn as Larry, Jim Carey as Curly and Benicio del Toro as Moe.  That was the lineup when MGM was in charge of a new Three Stooges project

Well, MGM is busy reorganizing and while the dust has yet to settle, The Three Stooges movie is hovering at Fox.

How all this came about is long, involved, boring and not worth the kilobytes, but it appears that the brave new Stooges film will finally see the light of limelight.

Peter and Bobby Farrelly (The Farrelly Brothers) have pushed this thing up a very tall mountain for what seems like eternity, but it is an important obsession with the Siblings, worth the wait, and to be shot in their own back yard at 20th.

With cast being reshuffled, Carey may be the best choice to remain.  No one today is closer to a Mack Sennett anachronism to play retro Roaring 20s slaphappy-Jerry Lewis Idiot.

Film historians have concluded that it was the talent playing The Three Stooges film characters and not the pants-dropping sketch scripts that made them popular.  Without Larry, Moe, Curly/Shemp there likely would not have been a second Stooges film made (much less 200).

The question not addressed in this breaking story is why use a grade-Z Stooges script with anyone other than Mr. Howard, Mr. Fine, Mr. Howard?