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BURYING THE HATCHET: Charlie Sheen & Warner Bros. TV To Settle Lawsuit

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Monday September 19, 2011 @ 3:59pm PDTTags: CBS, Charlie Sheen, Chuck Lorre, Two and a Half Men, Warner Bros. TV, WBTV
Nellie Andreeva

Well, Charlie Sheen may have been able to upstage the hyped relaunch of his former series Two and a Half Men and not with the Comedy Central Roast that also airs tonight but with some news. Sheen has been sending his former employers at Two and a Half Men public love letters over the past week in his numerous TV appearances, including at the Primetime Emmys last night. It turns out the conciliatory tone has spread to the two sides’ legal dispute. Sources confirmed that Sheen and Two and a Half Men producer Warner Bros. are close to a deal in Sheen’s $100M case against the studio and Men executive producer Chuck Lorre, which had been in private arbitration. The value of the settlement is in the millions of dollars and involves primarily payment towards Sheen’s back-end participation on the show. WBTV stopped all payments to the actor/producer in March when he filed his lawsuit. The exact size of the settlement is unclear, though the LA Times, which first reported the pending deal, floated a $25M figure, which is about a quarter of what Sheen was initially seeking.

Sheen had been dropping hints of a pending settlement in his recent publicity interviews, especially the one on The Tonight Show where he defended WBTV’s decision to fire him. “I would have fired my ass, too,” Sheen said. If there hadn’t been a settlement in the works, such statements would’ve given WBTV strong new ammunition in its case as Sheen is suing for wrongful termination while publicly admitting that firing him was the right thing to do. In the same interview, Sheen also admitted that he was “absolutely” out of control last spring when he launched his attacks on Lorre and WBTV.

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WBTV Signs Up ‘Chelsea Lately’ Comedian

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Friday June 25, 2010 @ 6:15pm PDTTags: Comedy, Jo Koy, Stand-up Comedians, TV, Warner Bros. TV, WBTV
Nellie Andreeva

JoKoyEXCLUSIVE: It used to be that Hollywood was signing stand-up comedians to TV deals all the time. Now it’s a rare occasion. But Jo Koy has inked a talent deal with Warner Bros TV to topline a comedy project based on his … Read More »

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‘The Big Bang Theory’ Cast Renegotiate

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Tuesday June 22, 2010 @ 8:03am PDTTags: CBS, CBS Comedy, Jim Parsons, Johnny Galecki, Kaley Cuoco, The Big Bang Theory CBS, The Big Bang Theory Salary Renegotiations, The Big Bang Theory Schedule, Warner Bros. TV, WBTV
Nellie Andreeva

BigBangTheoryartComing this summer to CBS and WBTV, it’s renegotiations time for the Big Bang gang. The CBS comedy is coming off a red-hot 3rd season and a gigantic off-network syndication deal, putting the cast of the show in a prime position for big salary bumps. Which brings me back to a post I did a month ago titled Is The Big Bang Theory the next Friends? The two comedies share a similar setup: ensemble multi-camera sitcoms about single twentysomethings, the majority of them living in two apartments across the hall; similar ratings strength: Big Bang is now the highest-rated scripted series on TV just like Friends once was; and now the two also share the same time slot, Thursday 8PM, after CBS decided to move Big Bang there in the fall.

Yes, I felt the two comedies had a lot in common… until now. One of the signature moves of the Friends cast was that they negotiated their deals together in an all-for-one, one-for-all fashion, getting to $100,000 per episode each in their first go-around with producer Warner Bros. TV after two seasons and eventually to $1 million per episode. Now, the cast of Big Bang is facing their first salary renegotiation with WBTV following a record-breaking syndication deal for the show, that netted the studio $2+M per episode. But I hear one of the three leads, Jim Parsons, is considering negotiating separately from co-stars Johnny Galecki and Kaley Cuoco.

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Primetime Pilot Panic: ‘Moonlight’ Not On CBS Fall Schedule But Not Dead; Show Lobbying For Back 13-Episode Order

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Monday May 12, 2008 @ 2:21pm PDTTags: CBS, Moonlight, Networks, Nina Tassler, Studios, TV, Warner Bros. TV, WBTV

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The news just came in to me from my sources…. “They’re fighting for a back 13 at mid-season, but Moonlight is definitely not on the fall schedule. But it’s not dead, either. Insiders tell me the sticking point is … Read More »

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