With a new Three Stooges film in development and a number of merchandising deals in the past year, Moe, Larry and Curly are on their way back. “The Stooges have truly become a big business,” said Bob Benjamin, principal and legal counsel for Glendale-based C3 Entertainment Inc., the company that runs the Three Stooges merchandising and licensing deals. Although the closely held company won’t release financial details, John Boyd, a licensing and merchandising consultant in Los Angeles, estimates the company likely grosses in excess of $50 million per year. “It’s a great brand because people know the Stooges from when they were kids,” Boyd said. “They’re known all over the world, so you have a vast merchandising opportunity.” By comparison, Boyd estimated the estate of Marilyn Monroe, for instance, annually grosses anywhere from $10 million to $20 million. Humphrey Bogart’s grosses about $5 million. Officials at the Richman Agency in Beverly Hills, which handles licensing and merchandising for those estates, would not confirm those figures. C3 owns Comedy III Productions, which Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Joe DeRita founded in 1959 to merchandise their products. “The Stooges were very smart. They founded a company to market their merchandise that they could control themselves,” Benjamin, DeRita’s stepson, said. “They started with T-shirts, posters and things like that. We’ve continued that but we’ve gone much further into books, movies, beer and even the Internet.” Today, of course, there’s a Web site with everything from film clips and photos to, naturally, an on-line store. “They get about a million hits a day,” said Rick Schotts, vice president of business development for Barlex Inc., which built the Web site. “It’s mind-boggling to think that there are that many Stooge fans.” The site sells the usual T-shirts and posters, but also some unusual things like a Three Stooges hammer that really works and puppets of Moe, Larry and Curly. “We had a couple of guys who wanted to have a Three Stooges beer. We thought it was a great idea, but after a year that company folded,” Benjamin said. “They were guys who had money and who wanted to have fun. They weren’t really dedicated to the business. “People got mad at us that we licensed Stooges beer, but I’m sure the Stooges would have loved that. Being PC (politically correct) isn’t what the Stooges are about. Perhaps the biggest move for the company so far is the one that has film producing brothers Peter and Bobby Farrelly making a Three Stooges movie tentatively scheduled for release in 2003. The Farrellys produced “There’s Something About Mary” and “Dumb and Dumber.” Last April, ABC aired a biographical television movie about the Stooges. C3 began its aggressive merchandising and licensing drive only after the end of a difficult court battle between the Stooges’ heirs. In 1995, Comedy III Productions won the rights to market Stooges merchandise. Fine’s daughters; DeRita’s widow, Jean; and Comedy III sued Moe’s daughter, Joan Maurer; her husband Norman; and Moe’s great-grandsons, claiming they were owed money from past merchandising deals involving the Stooges. The court eventually ordered Moe’s heirs to pay the plaintiffs $4.3 million, including $1.6 million to DeRita’s widow. Bela Lugosi Jr., son of the late film star, led the Fines’ and DeRitas’ legal team and has since gone on to represent the heirs of other late celebrities involved in licensing or merchandising disputes. “There are a handful of icons that everyone is after, including my dad,” Lugosi told the Associated Press last year. Today, Benjamin and his brother Earl, Jean DeRita, Christy Clark and Kris Cutler, granddaughters of Larry Fine, all sit on the company’s board of directors. The company closed its Knucklehead store in the Glendale Galleria earlier this year, Benjamin said, to concentrate on the scores of licensing requests that come in each year. Earlier this year, the company licensed a video game and has gone on to market the more than 100 Stooge shorts on videocassettes and DVDs. And C3 remains aggressive in the protection of its properties. On April 30, it won a lawsuit against artist Gary Saderup who was selling charcoal drawings of the Three Stooges. The suit was the latest in a number of successful lawsuits brought by C3 against firms or individuals.