Charlie Sheen ends legal battle with Warners Bros
Charlie Sheen's legal fight with his former Two And A Half Men bosses is over. Warner Bros Television released a statement saying Sheen's lawsuit against the studio and series executive producer Chuck Lorre had been settled 'to the parties' satisfaction'. Although Sheen has launched verbal attacks against both Warner Bros and Lorre, the actor has struck a more conciliatory tone lately. At the Emmy Awards, he publicly wished former cast members well on their new season, which features Ashton Kutcher playing a new character who replaces Sheen's role as philandering Charlie Harper. He also will not be talking about the settlement - Warner Bros statement says the terms are confidential. Sheen had filed a 100 million-dollar (64.5m pounds) lawsuit for wrongful termination against Warner after him sacking last March. His lawyer, Marty Singer, had said much of that amount was the actor's share of DVD, syndication and other profits that the studio was withholding. At the time, Sheen was the highest-paid actor in television, reportedly earning as much as two million dollars an episode. His exit cut short the CBS comedy's last series. The case never became the forum for Sheen's grievances that the actor said he was seeking - most of the court proceedings centred on whether the dispute should be heard through private arbitration, as called for in the actor's contract. A judge determined that the case should be moved to arbitration in June and lawyers had been working through that process. Sheen has distanced himself from his previous outlandish behaviour in recent weeks and has acknowledged he was at least partly responsible for his ousting from US TV's top-rated comedy. "It was bad," Sheen told Tonight Show host Jay Leno, "and I own my part in that, and I just want to make everything right."
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Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.
An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.