New Sitcom Based On Charlie Sheen In The Works?
Two and a Half Men creator Chuck Lorre has pitched a new sitcom based on Charlie Sheen's real-life firing from the series.
The Hollywood Reporter recently reported on an unproduced script they acquired from Two and a Half Men producer Chuck Lorre. Apparently, the script, titled Sex, Drugs and a Sitcom, gives an unfiltered account of the history of Two and a Half Men star Charlie Sheen’s very public meltdown during the time of filming. Those who followed Sheen’s firing from the show will remember the public insults he leveled at Lorre at the time.
According to THR, the script opens up with Charlie Sheen in an interview with Matt Lauer before heading back nine years into the past to regale the beginnings of Two and a Half Men and how the show came to fruition. Not only would Sheen and Lorre himself be characters in the series, but there would also be various real-life characters from series like Roseanne, Cybill, Grace Under Fire, and Dharma & Greg. This likely would have made casting the series pretty difficult, so that might be the first hurdle that the series would face if any studio was willing to take the risk.
The pilot also apparently features people like Warner Bros. Television chairman Peter Roth and former CBS boss Les Moonves. THR mentioned that the script was dated June 15, 2022, so this project was shopped by Chuck Lorre very recently. It’s unclear if Charlie Sheen has heard about this script yet, but it seems pretty unlikely the actor would be happy to hear about it.
Charlie Sheen was ousted from Two and a Half Men in 2011, due in part to his comments about Chuck Lorre. The show would move on without him, replacing Sheen with Ashton Kutcher. Before being kicked off the show, Sheen was the highest-paid actor on television at the time, pulling in $1.8 million per episode.
Since getting fired from Two and a Half Men, Charlie Sheen’s career has scaled back quite a bit. One of his most successful ventures in the last decade was the television series Anger Management, which ran for 100 episodes and two seasons. He has appeared in various films since 2011 as well, such as A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, She Wants Me, Foodfight!, Scary Movie 5, Machete Kills, Mad Families, and 9/11.
Charlie Sheen also appeared in a Comedy Central Roast the same year he was kicked off Two and a Half Men, drawing in 6.4 million people and becoming the highest-rated roast to date. Meanwhile, Chuck Lorre continued to have massive television successes after Two and a Half Men ended. Four years before Sheen was fired, Lorre created The Big Bang Theory! which became another huge success and ran until 2019.
Chuck Lorre also created the spin-off The Big Bang Theory! series Young Sheldon, which is still coming out with new seasons. The next project from Lorre will be an HBO Max series called How to Be a Bookie that will star Sebastian Maniscalco along with Omar Dorsey, Andrea Anders, Vanessa Ferlito, and Jorge Garcia. While it’s unlikely we’ll ever see Lorre get that Charlie Sheen series made, maybe the script will get released to the public someday.
