Charlie Sheen just sued Warner Bros. for $100 million. This is getting ugly. How does it work out? When Warner Brothers rehires him and “Two and a Half Men” restarts next season.

This might seem crazy. Like, Charlie Sheen-crazy. But think about it — why did they fire him anyway?

Because he bad mouthed the studio and his boss? Pssh. There are plenty of divas around Hollywood. And there is one reason people are allowed to be divas — when they bring in the money. Like Charlie Sheen does.

“Two and a Half Men” has been the number one comedy on television for seven of its eight season. NUMBER ONE. Not “The Office.” Not “30 Rock.” It’s had critical acclaim in the form of Outstanding Comedy nominations and Emmy nominations for Sheen. But all that matters is that number one designation.

It’s one of the most-watched shows on television. Because of this, it brings in fairly substantial advertising revenue, money needed to offset all the unwatched shows on CBS in the demo (like “Blue Bloods,” “The Good Wife,” etc.).

And since its not a drama or a serial, it repeats really well. So well, that for the last two Mondays, even in repeats, “Two and Half Men” has been one of the top programs for the night.

It does just as well in syndication. Most weeks, “Two and A Half Men” is one of the most-watched syndicated programs. And that’s where Warner Bros. is making its money: syndication.

Warner Bros. foots the bill for the show. It’s the one paying out nearly $2 million per episode to keep Sheen — and the studio that just fired him. Warner Bros. sell each episode to CBS for its first run airing. Given that its one of the top programs, CBS probably pockets some nice advertising change ($200,000+ per 30 second commercial) for the show, and in turn, pays a hefty price to Warner Bros. per episode — likely several million per episode, off setting the cost of production for Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. then banks on syndication to keep “Two and A Half Men” money running forever. Successfully syndicated shows are monster — “Seinfeld” has earned more than $2.7 BILLION in the 13 years since it went off the air. Every episode canceled represents millions of dollars lost to Warner Brothers.

Since “Men” repeats and performs so well in all these aspects, it makes the most financial sense to keep Sheen. This lawsuit is going to cost everyone involved, millions of dollars. Sheen wants the money. And as his lawsuit alleges, Warner Bros. knew what he was like when they signed him to a $90 contract extension last year.

How does this all end? The only way that makes sense for everyone: with Sheen returning to “Two and a Half Men.” 

About The Author

Jason Woods is a Blast staff writer

4 Responses

  1. Sara

    No surprising. This world runs on greed. Morals don’t matter. People like Sheen are what’s wrong with society. And re-hiring him just creates more of a monster than he already is. He needs psychiatric help and if he’s on drugs, they are funding his drug habit and then they will be helping kill him.

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  2. Nowhere

    Screw greed! We just want Sheen back. This world is so dark, and gets pointless, without quality entertainment. I’m sure one of those exec’s will grow-up or a pair and do what is logical (and not descriminatory against differently abled people).

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  3. Reality Check

    While everyone is focused on the money aspect, while we all know that NONE OF YOU would say no to being offered that kind of money (just jealous that your not the ones getting offered it), I still think it’s going to be incredibly rough as well as flat out ridiculous to bring him back.

    I know what your thinking right now, I’m a Sheen hater. But this could not be more false, I am merely focused on the actual storyline of the series. E1 this season, HE GOT SMASHED BY A TRAIN! Let’s not forget that they mention right on the air that there wasn’t much left but Sheen pudding (not actual lines). With that being said, how the hell are they supposed to bring him back? Some stupid ass plot line saying that “Oh, it wasn’t me, just a guy who looked like me, poor bastard” (which by the way makes ALL of the other characters complete idiots for not knowing who there own brother/son/uncle/lover looked like) or ZOMBIE SHEEN!!!. I mean really, Sheen was the heart and soul of that show and to say they can bring it back after an episode like that will just hurt the reputation of the show for some but not all the fans.

    Now granted, some of the people that will read this will be die hard fans of the show as well as Sheen, and will move on and completely accept what the writers put to bring him back, regardless of how stupid the storyline would be, but I for one will be more interested how much creativity it will take to pull this off without killing the intelligence of the other characters.

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