Johnny Knoxville has been rumored as one of the frontrunners for the Farrelly Brothers’ long-gestating Three Stooges movie before only to be debunked the Farrellys themselves. And now Knoxville, apparently, has the role.

Variety says Johnny is on the verge of signing a deal with Fox that would have him as Moe, the lead in the Three Stooges movie. Their sources claim the part was offered to him and the Farrellys have been sitting around for awhile waiting on him to accept. So the question here is, were Peter and Bobby Farrelly lying or is something else going on here?

At the time the Farrelly’s never said he wasn’t involved exactly, they just said he wasn’t a frontrunner. But if Knoxville has had this offer pending for awhile, he had to have been a leading candidate even back then. Could this be a case of Fox pushing him into the production over the Farrelly Brothers objection? He does seem like a complete departure from most of the other candidates up for the part, before the Farrelly’s last movie flopped. Previously they’d targeted the likes of Benicio del Toro to take on the role. After the failure of their recently released comedy, Hall Pass, the latest in a string of Farrelly Brothers failures, you have to wonder how much pull those two actually have left.

Knoxville does have a talent for dishing out idiotic punishment to his friends. The entire Jackass franchise is basically built on it and, dishing out punishment to his friends is kind of Moe’s role in the Stooges trifecta. The key point here is that this movie is finally moving again. The Three Stooges fell into development hell and clawed their way back out again. Maybe it’ll even be good.