Movies With Butter

The Three Stooges is coming to theaters next week so the cast and crew are doing the rounds to promote the movie. They'll have their work cut out for them because, so far, the movie is projected to make somewhere in the neighborhood of $10-$15 million in its opening weekend, for a cumulative domestic gross in the high thirties.

That may spell trouble for Bobby and Peter Farrelly, the directors of the movie, because in order for them to get this movie made, they essentially didn't take any salary for a chance at a larger backend, which one point is donated to the families of the original Three Stooges.

Here's what Peter Farrelly said to Deadline's Mike Fleming:

"We were having a hard time getting this made and loved it so much that we took a page out of Todd Phillips' playbook for The Hangover. We said, we'll do it for free, just give us a bigger back end. That got their attention."

The movie was made for $36 million, so if the box office projection above is within the ballpark, the Farrelly Brothers won't get paid for their work on The Three Stooges.

It's not as bad as it sounds though. There's always the overseas box office. I suspect The Three Stooges will be a bigger hit abroad than here, but the question is, how big.

Bobby and Peter Farrelly will reunite with Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels for Dumb and Dumber 2. That movie will shoot this September.

• Prev:  "Cabin in the Woods" Reviews Are Out of the Woods
• Next:  Does Disney's $200M Write Down for "John Carter" Include Revenue from Home Video and TV?