Penn was set to play Larry in The Three Stooges and a man trying trying to rescue his kidnapped son in Cartel.
The Academy Award winning actor is taking a year off to focus more on his family.
Universal and Imagine are putting together a list of actors now for Cartel and hope to keep to an early fall start date.
As far as Stooges goes, it is unclear if MGM and the Farrelly brothers will recast the role or wait for Penn to return to work. The film is also set to star Jim Carrey as Curly and Benicio Del Toro as Moe.
If you’re a Penn fan, don’t worry about when you’ll see him on screen next as he completed two films before taking this sabbatical. The first is Fair Game, a Doug Liman drama about outed CIA agent Valerie Plame, co-starring Naomi Watts. The second is Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life co-starring Brad Pitt.
Source: Variety
