He's not "winning" anymore: Charlie Sheen has been fired from his starring role in Two and a Half Men, two weeks after the actor unleashed a torrent of venom aimed at his employers and especially the show's producer Chuck Lorre in a series of rambling, sometimes incoherent interviews.
"After careful consideration, Warner Bros. Television has terminated Charlie Sheen's services on Two and a Half Men effective immediately," the studio said in a brief statement. A spokeman added that no decision has been made on the future of the series, which abruptly wrapped up its eighth season Feb. 14 when production was shut down after Sheen entered what turned out to be at-home rehab. The move was not unexpected, as executives at both CBS and Warner Bros. viewed Sheen's press assault as a scorched-earth move that made a reconciliation difficult.
Attention now moves to whether he'll be replaced and if the show will enter a ninth season, which has already been sold into syndication, giving Warner Bros. a big financial incentive to continue, at least until May 2012. John Stamos, who's recently appeared on Glee, was approached by CBS chief Leslie Moonves at a pre-Oscar party to gauge his interest, though the encounter was described by the network as "lighthearted." Sheen himself extended the life of ABC's 1990s sitcom Spin City by essentially replacing Michael J. Fox as its star when Fox quit due to his Parkinson's disease. That role led to his casting soon after on Two and a Half Men, which eerily echoed Sheen's real-life persona as a womanizing partier.
If TV's top-rated comedy does not continue, that will leave a hole in CBS' solid Monday night sitcom block, though lead-off hitter How I Met Your Mother was renewed Monday for two more seasons. But a strong possibility is that Lorre's hit The Big Bang Theory, moved to Thursdays last fall, could claim Men's Monday berth.
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