The Three Stooges are back, Farrelly $tyle.

MGM is in the process of acquiring the film rights to the Untitled Three Stooges Project from Warner Bros., which has been developing the project for years. MGM wants to fast-track the most recent screenplay, an origin story for Moe, Larry and Curly, written by Peter Farrelly and Bobby Farrelly. The Farrellys are also said to direct the film.

Mary Parent, chairman of MGM said "The Three Stooges are a timeless staple of comedy...And when we heard what the Farrellys had in mind, we knew it was time for Larry, Moe and Curly to return to the big screen."

The Farrellys' screenplay -- described by the filmmakers as "slapstick with heart" -- breaks the feature into four 20-minute shorts, in an approximation of the vaudeville and slapstick pioneers' most common format in the 1920s and '30s. The first episode establishes the bruising, boisterous brothers as 7-year-old castoffs who terrorize the nun-run orphanage that takes them in. Eventually foced to leave, Moe (the hostile leader), Larry (the jokey sidekick) and Curly (the childlike dimwit) try to find a place for themselves in a modern world.

No one is yet attached to star, but over the years thinking has run from total unknowns to unexpected A-list "stunt" casting, with such names as Russell Crowe and Mel Gibson floated for the temper-challenged, bowl-cut Moe.