2 1/2 Men

That might work...

Sheen Tantrum Likely to Cost in the Millions

By BILL CARTER

Charlie Sheen’s latest antics may leave CBS and Warner Brothers with a quarter-billion-dollar headache.





Charlie Sheen on “Two and a Half Men.”



When Hollywood Says ‘Enough

What is the tipping point for networks in tolerating bad public behavior from their big stars?

The two companies decided on Thursday to halt production of the hit CBS
comedy “Two and a Half Men” after Mr. Sheen, the star of the show,
unleashed a barrage of vituperative comments about the sitcom’s creator,
Chuck Lorre. The loss of next season’s episodes would mean forgoing about $250
million in revenue between Warner Brothers, which produces the show, and
CBS. The actual shortfall would be much lower because the network would
reduce its costs and would receive revenue from another show in its
place. But it would still hurt the bottom line. In halting work on one of
television’s most successful programs, network executives were fully
aware of the financial implications. “We knew this was going to cost a ton of money,” one senior executive
involved in the decisions said, adding, “tens of millions.” Based on what the program was expected to take in from syndication sales
of future episodes, Warner Brothers could fall short by about $100
million in revenue if the show never tapes another episode. And CBS,
which charged about $200,000 for each 30-second commercial, may have to
make up close to $160 million — the amount it could have made during the
next season. That kind of money usually leads to compromises in Hollywood, even in
the most distasteful of circumstances. In this case, however, several of
the parties to the decision — all of whom asked not to be identified
because the companies were standing on an official statement released
Thursday — said the most likely outcome of the confrontation is an
untimely end of the series. “We won’t know for sure until May,” one of the executives said,
referring to the period when networks formally announce their prime-time
schedule for the fall. But given the hostility expressed by Mr. Sheen,
and Mr. Lorre’s avowed resistance to continue the show without him as
the leading star, further episodes seem unlikely, the executive said.
If that proves to be the case, the show will fall about 32 episodes
short — eight this season, 24 next — of what had already been committed.
Stations and cable outlets that have purchased the reruns would then
not have to pay the estimated cost of $3 million an episode. Those outlets would almost surely have spent the money because “Two and a
Half Men” is the top-rated show in syndication. It has also provided an
instant ratings increase for FX, the cable channel that bought its
repeats (for about $800,000 an episode). “There’s just no question,” said Brad Adgate, the senior vice president
for research at Horizon Media. “If this show is over, these guys are
going to feel it, especially given how hard it is to get a hit show.”
On Thursday, Mr. Sheen denigrated Mr. Lorre, the most successful comedy
producer currently working in television, as a charlatan whose show
became a success only because of Mr. Sheen’s own talents. He also repeatedly called Mr. Lorre by the name Chaim Levine, which
executives from both CBS and Warner Brothers interpreted as a veiled
anti-Semitic attack. Mr. Sheen was also criticized on Friday by the Anti-Defamation League
for those comments. (The comments probably went back to a mention Mr.
Lorre himself once included on the show, where he called himself Chaim
Levine. That is his Hebrew name. He was born Charles Levine. Mr. Sheen
also goes by another name. He was born Carlos Estevez.) Jon Swallen, the senior vice president for research at Kantar Media,
which measures the economic value of television shows, estimated that
CBS took in about $155 million in advertising on the program last year,
while Warner Brothers added $268 million in what are known as barter
sales in the syndicated repeats of the show. Local television stations
acquire the repeats for a small fee, and also hand over a portion of
their advertising time to Warner Brothers to sell. Not having any new episodes might not affect the advertising revenue for
Warner in the short term, Mr. Swallen said, but “the ratings could
decline if they don’t have new episodes to refresh the repeats.” Similarly, CBS does not stand to lose all of the $160 million or so it
could have made in ad revenue in the lost episodes this year and next.
CBS will replace the show with something else and sell ratings points in
that show. “That will presumably be at much lower prices,” Mr. Swallen
said. However, CBS pays a costly license fee to Warner Brothers to carry the
show, as well as all the production costs on the show, a total of about
$4 million an episode. It will not have to pay anywhere near that much
on a new entry. So the network may not see much of a hit to its bottom
line — at least not right away. In fact, in a statement CBS said: “This will have no material impact to a
company of our size. And at the network level, given the economics of a
show like this in its eighth season, any ratings declines will be more
than offset by the reduced programming costs for the time period.”
The other value of “Two and a Half Men” is harder to quantify. The show
has provided, perhaps more than any other other show on television, a
boost for shows CBS has placed around it. Mr. Lorre, who declined to comment, also stands to lose a substantial
amount of money from the unproduced episodes of “Two and a Half Men”
because of his share in syndication profits. But so does someone else who owns a percentage of the sales of each episode: Charlie Sheen.

I hope they were all smart boys and girls and socked away a bit of that million-bazillion they were ALL paid to tide them over during these "tough times" .

You know I love both his father and brother, and they've had "problems" in the past as well, but this guy I've never, ever liked.

Chuck Lorre, Two and a Half Men creator. (David Livingston/Getty Images)

‘Two and a Half Men’ Creator Chuck Lorre Responds To Charlie Sheen


by Todd Gold
Mar 1st, 2011 | 9:12 AM | Comments 0



Say what? After a day that saw Charlie Sheen speak with “Today,” ABC News, “Access Hollywood,” and even stream an odd rant live from his backyard with TMZ.com, the target of his vitriol, “Two and a Half Men” creator Chuck Lorre, finally responded. His statement reads:
“I understand that I’m under a lot of pressure to respond to certain
statements made about me recently. The following are my uncensored
thoughts. I hope this will put an end to any further speculation.”
I believe that consciousness creates the illusion of individuation,
the false feeling of being separate. In other words, I am aware, ergo I
am alone. I further believe that this existential misunderstanding is
the prime motivating force for the neurotic compulsion to blot out
consciousness. This explains the paradox of our culture, which
celebrates the ego while simultaneously promoting its evisceration with
drugs and alcohol. It also clarifies our deep-seated fear of monolithic,
one-minded systems like communism, religious fundamentalism, zombies
and invaders from Mars. Each one is a dark echo of an oceanic state of
unifying transcendence from which consciousness must, by nature, flee.
The Fall from Grace is, in fact, a Sprint from Grace. Or perhaps more
accurately, “Screw Grace, I am so outta here!”
The statement is not as good or funny as Lorre’s vanity cards, but at least he and Sheen are starting a dialogue. Can’t wait for them to hug it out.

What the hell?

What was the point? Was that some attempt at humor? This is all just sick. I said to an actor friend of mine at lunch today. "Someone needs to get an elephant dart and put him(Sheen) down. Then they need to cart him off." Sheen has never had any kind of decent personality. True he has done some good acting in several blockbusters and played Charlie Harper to the hilt. But, the Charlie Sheen we are seeing now is never going to be able to act again. Those brain cells are dead. He's lost reasoning power and a D.J. on our local station noted that if you look at his eyes now they are are very similar to how Charles Manson's looked.

It's obvious that the news media is out to suck everything out of him they can. And of course because he can no longer reason what they are doing to him still thinks he's "a rockstar from Mars."
This is all coming to a very bad end. At the very least Charlie spends all his money and looses his house and everything and winds up a wino under a bridge still thinking he's a rock star. And the worst... The day after the funeral...the world will go on as if it never happened.

But in the mean time...you will hear every thing that comes out of his mouth..or may have come out of his mouth...or could come out of his mouth at some point....

Way to go newsmedia.....I'm old enough to remember a day when a journalist or newscaster wouldn't have been caught dead having anything to do with this story...This isn't news...this is a personal disaster in a family that is an acting dynasty. And their feelings are being raked over daily without so much as an apology all in the name of ratings and viewership. Sick....sick....sick.

I don't want to prolong this agony of a story any further but the police have stepped in and removed his 2 year old sons from Charlie Sheen's house. That did need to be done.

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20470188,00.html

The media just needs to ignore Charlie and not put his rantings on TV or in the news but that won't happen. I just turn anything I see him on off.

Glad that his wife got smart and got his kids away from him. He is a major catastrophe waiting to happen!!!

Just ran across this and thought it was hilarious!!!

John Stamos Tweets Charlie Sheen

Charlie Sheen says John Stamos can't replace him on "Two and a Half Men."

Some people might think that former "Full House" star John Stamos would make a fine fill-in for Charlie Sheen on "Two and a Half Men." Sheen is not one of them. On Feb. 28, Sheen declared on "Access Hollywood," "I like John, but he doesn't have what I have and the show sucks if he's on it." Stamos tweeted back the next day, "Contrary to the rumors, I am not replacing charlie sheen on two and half men however, martin sheen has asked me to be his son."

I heard the rumour yesterday that Stamos was going to play the part of Charlie Harper. But the solid word this morning from Mike Evans, the Hollywood insider is that Lorre and mgt are ACTIVELY looking for Sheen's replacement. I say get on with it, the quicker the better. I just feel so sorry for the dad.

No doubt that Lorre is looking for a replacement, but yet some entertainment pundits say that Sheen and Lorre will "kiss and make up" down the road and Sheen will be back with a boost in salary. I'll believe it when I see it... .

I thought Sheen's interview was like a nail in his career coffin......he was so unlikable......and thought way too highly of himself....it was borderline insane. And those young sleezy girls who think he is so wonderful.....one of them said they have a "normal" life.......boy are they out of touch!!!!!

I feel sorry for the other actors on the show....they deserve so much better.

Donald Trump was on Letterman last night. He thinks that Moonves, CBS chief, will bring Sheen back with a pay raise.

TPTB probably won't lose money doing that. after all 1 million twitterers have jumped aboard to follow Charlie Sheen. They may be interested in the show but I won't be joining them. It was an average comedy show before...it would just be sad now.

I can't imagine how they could replace Sheen and still go on with the same basic premise. Who else could play a womanizing, heavy drinking, horn-dog like he did ? It would be a parody. Of course the real tragedy is that if it goes away there will be one less high-profile show for aspiring actresses to attract attention to themselves. Lorre did have the ability to find them and run them by us. Of course some were already well known and took the role for whatever reason.... , such as Jeri Ryan, Brook Shields, Jenny McCarthy, Trish Helfer, etc., etc. But on the other hand some less well known actresses became very well known after appearing especially if they had ongoing roles such as Emmanuel Vaugier, April Bowlby and of course Jennifer Taylor. And there were plenty who had "one-night stands" literally and role-wise, Diora Baird being one of the most memorable.

They can kill Charlie and bring on a new character in lots of different ways. I've seen it suggested that John Stamos be a son that the Mom had and dropped off somewhere for one of her zany reasons and had never told them about, or that John could be answering an ad for room-mate when the Jon Cryer character needs help keeping the household going, or that he could be a character completely opposite of Charlie that actually brings stability and fixes the family. I don't know, they are writers and are paid the big bucks, I'm sure they could come up with something.


If there is one thing I know it is that no one in the work force is irreplaceable. Certainly not Charlie Sheen.

Aside from the fact that Stamos says he's not interested, if the reports are true, then they would have to change the whole premise of the show and the new son would have to be a 'good guy' and it might devolve into just another sitcom. One of the main reasons that's it's been so popular is all the double-entrandes and "zingers" that they get away with....and of course the starlets.... :lol:

The show probably has too much taint to continue.

They've already sold it, seasons and seasons into syndication. Why go on?

Apparently Charlie will be too busy helping out the Haitians and Sean Penn to be available for filming.

Yeah, his Haitian "gig" seems a little weird. Did Penn approach him to go ? Sheen and Penn, now that's a pair ! As if the poor Haitians didn't have enough to worry about.

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_15996/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=JFIUP8dT


According to many sources Penn is Sheen's best friend.

While I do think a trip to Haiti would be good for Sheen in one way, at this point..that's a trip that can go either way. Sheen says they are going. It doesn't change his status in my mind. Longtime fans are hard to get back in your corner once you really screw things up.

He has provided me with my ScriptFrenzy challenge so good on that.

The show is in syndication until 2020. So it will be out there if people that far in the future want to watch it. I think if TPTB would just go ahead and change the focus from Charlie Harper to Jake Harper who is groing up before our eyes...it could be a better show than it was....and I used to think it was pretty good. But not anymore.

Personally, I think the big Penn-Sheen Rescue the Haitians from themselves tour will go rousingly until one of them gets stabbed in the eye with a pen and the other one gets beheaded. Prolly take about 10 minutes...tops.

Wonder who gets custody of the goddesses?

Who get's the goddesses...well anybody that want them from the impression they've made this far.

Gah! We could be thanking the Haitians for the favor.

I saw where Gary Busey says he's praying for Charlie Sheen. When you have Gary Busey worried, you can be sure you have gone off the deep end.

Charlie Sheen has been fired from 2 1/2 men. It came across AP about an hour ago. The fate of the show is uncertain and Sheen if off to something with Mark Cuban. Sure hope Cuban goes with them to Haiti. Can not stand him.

I hope they don't cancel the show. Tons of ways they could go. So I hope they vote to keep working and move past the train wreck.