Jon Cryer on New Two and a Half Men: Yes, Sheen Dies, No, Charlie Harper Won't Be Forgotten

Jon Cryer Just because Charlie Sheen's character is being killed off Two and a Half Men, that doesn't mean Charlie Harper will suddenly be forgotten, Jon Cryer tells Entertainment Weekly. CBS boss looks to the future with Ashton Kutcher and Ted Danson In August, reports came out that CBS was planning to kill off Sheen's character, which would effectively preclude him from ever returning to the series. Sheen was fired in March by production studio Warner Bros. TV after months of growing tension between Sheen and executive producer Chuck Lorre. Ashton Kutcher was brought onboard the hit show in May. True to the show's tone, Cryer says Charlie Harper's death and funeral won't be a sobfest. "This show has never had an ounce of sentimentality; it's not what we do," Cryer says. "This is [handled] with that same lack of sentimentality. Any concerns I had about it were completely washed away by the studio audience we had - which signed nondisclosure agreements - and had a terrific reaction to it." Report: Ashton Kutcher's first Two and a Half Men episode features Charlie Harper's funeral Still, memories of Harper will linger. "The history of the show does not go away at all," Cryer says. "It will be dealt with all through the first season. It's not, "Oh, that character's gone, let's forget completely about him." There will be ramifications all through the season. We're not taking this into a new universe where the first show didn't exist." Now that Sheen is off the Men series, Cryer says it feels like they're starting fresh. "It's such a strange combination of the same show and a completely new show," he says. "All of us on the set keep referring to the first episode back as the 'pilot' by mistake." Jon Cryer: Charlie Sheen's Two and a Half Men death is "funny" Kutcher's character, a broken-hearted Internet billionaire named Walden Schmidt, will be introduced in the two-part season premiere. "Working with Ashton is a blast. Audiences have been going nuts for him," Cryer says, noting there will be a big change in the dynamic between their characters compared to what we've seen in the past with Alan and Charlie. "I can only say my character ends up being the more romantically experienced one of the two of them," he adds. "So Alan becomes sort of a mentor character to Ashton's character. And as bad as an idea as that sounds, it's just as bad on the show - I'm a terrible mentor. And that's where a lot of the fun of the show comes from." Elsewhere on TV, Sheen isn't being forgotten, either. On the same night of the Men premiere, Monday, Sept. 19 at 9/8c, Sheen will be roasted over on Comedy Central by the likes of TMZ's Harvey Levin, Jackass' Steve-O and boxer Mike Tyson. How do you feel about the idea of Cryer's Alan giving Kutcher's Walden relationship tips? Will you miss Charlie Sheen?

Transformers 3 Full Movie

Duo build 'Brickhouse' for CBS

WadlowColumbusExclusive: Author-director Shaun Wadlow has teamed with helmer Chris Columbus to build up the offbeat detective drama "Brickhouse" for CBS and CBS TV Galleries.Project involves a nineteen forties-era detective named Frank Brickhouse who creates homicide cases in contemporary Bay Area. Wadlow is writing the pilot script and professional produces with Columbus, who'll direct if "Brickhouse" would go to pilot.The procedural focuses on an old S.F. officer who thinks he's a nineteen forties detective a la Mike Spade or Philip Marlowe. After he's launched from the mental institution in to the custody of the children of his more youthful brother, additionally a homicide detective, his Brickhouse alter ego starts nosing around on his brother's murder cases.Wadlow brainstormed the idea and was rapidly combined with Columbus, who inked a hefty cope with CBS last spring that requires him to build up and direct a minumum of one pilot for that Eye within the coming development season.Additionally towards the CBS project, Wadlow is fielding an hourlong action-comedy for Fox, Warner Bros. TV and McG's Wonderland Seem and Vision banner. That project, tentatively entitled "Cockfight," is really a spy versus. spy buddy vehicle turning about 2 male roommates who work with rival espionage orgs (Daily Variety, August. 10).CBS continues to be at the top of Wadlow's potential like a series creator within the last couple of years. Dealing with producer Joel Silver, he fielded the Minnie Driver pilot "Hail Mary," that was a powerful contender for any drama slot captured, as well as in 2010 he shipped another CBS drama pilot, "The Chances.InchFollowing making some noise with 2002 video clip "The Tower of Babble," Wadlow got his begin in the biz like a feature helmer of these photos as 2005's "Cry Wolf" and 2008's "Never Down Again." Once he switched his focus on television, he teamed with Joel Silver, who championed Wadlow's pitches for "Odds" and "Hail Mary" despite his insufficient prior experience like a TV scribe.Even while Wadlow juggles two projects for pilot season, he's also aboard to direct an element for Silver's Dark Castle banner, the plane thriller "Non-Stop."Wadlow and Columbus are repped by WME. Wadlow's also repped by attorney David Matlof of Hirsch Wallerstein. Contact Cynthia Littleton at cynthia.littleton@variety.com

When crix are critical

'The Hedgehog,' about a girl who bonds with her buildings concierge, deserves some critical love.Perhaps you've heard: There's an appealing new movie in theaters now, based on a best-selling novel in which a precocious white girl, working against the objections of her parents and neighbors, befriends a beaten-down servant lady and helps to unlock her literary tendencies. No, it's not "The Help," but a delightful arthouse release called "The Hedgehog." As luck would have it, both "The Help" and "The Hedgehog" fall into that rare category of movie you could recommend to just about anyone -- your mom, your priest, the hipster behind the register at the local Whole Foods market. But as potential crowdpleasers go, "The Hedgehog" has a major handicap working against it -- it's French -- and the conventional thinking goes that foreign pics depend on critical raves to find their audience in this country. Intelligent but not necessarily intellectual, solid but not terribly sophisticated, the pic was a success when it opened in its native France in July 2009, and has delighted moviegoers nearly everywhere it's traveled, winning audience prizes at multiple fests, including Seattle, Palm Springs, and the City of Lights City of Angels in Los Angeles. Released Aug. 19 on just six screens, the film has already earned more than $60,000. Still, "The Hedgehog" is not exactly what you would call a critic's film -- which might explain why it took two years to reach U.S. shores, eventually landing with NeoClassics. With pics like these, distribs want to know in advance that they'll get raves from Manohla Dargis, Kenneth Turan or other key tastemakers, since that means they won't have to spend a fortune on advertising to open the film. "Critics always help a foreign-language film," says Sony Pictures Classics co-chief Michael Barker. "I think the people who go to foreign films are readers: They read subtitles, so they read critics." "The Help," by contrast, doesn't need critics any more than "Harry Potter" does. Between the starry cast, well-loved source material and not-insubstantial marketing budget, audiences will see it, be touched and tell their friends. But when it comes to something like "The Hedgehog" -- a film with the broad appeal of another "Amelie" -- cash-strapped specialty distribs don't have the resources to buy that first wave of support. "That's why a lot of people wait for films to show in fests, because then they get confirmation of what the critics are going to say," Barker says. Notes Ryan Werner, senior VP of marketing for Sundance Selects and IFC Films, "Part of my job at festivals is to really pay attention to the critical response to a film. Like this year at Cannes, the Dardennes' film ("The Kid With a Bike") was really tracking well." That cinched IFC's decision to snap it up. Of course, critics are just one factor distribs consider. Foreign-made genre films typically manage to find their audience: From "Kill List" to "The Troll Hunter," IFC and Magnet routinely acquire such titles. Some auteurs, like Pedro Almodovar, have a built-in audience. The same goes for stars, such as Catherine Deneuve, whose "Potiche" broke out this year. According to Barker, identifying a demographic sure to embrace the film also helps: SPC pushed Trappist monk drama "Of Gods and Men" to $4 million by reaching out to Christian groups. But the cheapest strategy remains free press, whether via positive reviews or publicity generated by director interviews and other opportunities. As a result, Americans' diet of foreign-language cinema tends toward the critically acclaimed. That should be a good thing, but isn't, necessarily. Critics (especially those who haunt the fest circuit) are radically different from the average moviegoer when it comes to taste. They see hundreds of movies a year and quickly burn out on the kind of comfort food most audiences crave. Instead, they seek out and champion increasingly edgy, innovative work at the expense of familiar and classically crafted fare -- like "The Hedgehog." As if to address this disconnect, Stephen Farber wrote a recent column in the Los Angeles Times imploring his fellow critics to lower their brows. "It is distressing to see intelligent critics trampling on so many good movies," he chided, suggesting that his fellow pundits embrace the "earnest, simplistic and sentimental" pleasures of the middlebrow movie. Farber has a point, but he mistakenly reduces the critic to consumer guide, overlooking the more important role as esthetic and cultural judge. Frankly, we should be relieved that critics hold films to a higher standard than the casual moviegoer. But we should also be mindful of the biases and limitations of their taste. For example, a film like "Dogtooth" impresses critics with its audacity, but isn't the kind of Friday-night-out experience you would wish on just anybody. The Oscar-nominated drama is actively antagonistic toward its audience and responsible for nearly as many walk-outs as satisfied customers. Likewise, Cannes Palme d'Or winner "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives" scored an 87 on Metacritic. Such positive reviews provide the kind of support Strand needed to release the challenging Thai pic, but left many of those who bought tickets unsatisfied. Meanwhile, countless foreign-language gems lack the effusive critical praise they need to pique audience interest; in turn, distribs won't bite. Unlike Farber, I don't see this as the critics' problem. I can't think of a single person who wouldn't appreciate my favorite film of 2011 -- low-budget Chilean romancer "The Life of Fish," a tender, perfectly observed look at 21st-century coupling starring "Heroes" heartthrob Isaac Mendez -- but it's not my job to overhype it. Nor should critics be scolded for being hard on "The Hedgehog." Ultimately, it's up to a keen distributor to figure out how to communicate a film's broadly appealing qualities on the thinnest of marketing budgets. Every time one of these titles breaks through -- be it "Amelie" or "Pan's Labyrinth" -- the discovery convinces people to expand their cinematic horizons. Contact Peter Debruge at peter.debruge@variety.com

Japan's bored auds switch off Televisions

Not really TV stalwarts like 'Mito komon,' about the air since 1969, have handled to flee the rankings slump. MBS is tugging the show in December. Tokyo, japan-- Japan, once probably the most TV-addicted people in the world, are moving from the tube -- forcing systems to scramble for other causes of revenue, from pic production, satellite services, Internet streaming sites along with other technology.Every day TV viewing time, which averaged a lot more than five hrs within the seventies, shrank to three hrs and 28 minutes by 2010, based on figures put together through the NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute.Males aged 10-20 are watching under two hrs each day.At the same time, program rankings happen to be trending downward for terrestrial systems, pubcaster NHK and commercial rivals TV Asahi, NTV, The best spinner's, Fuji TV and TV Tokyo, japan, despite spikes for major sport occasions along with other special programming.In June not just one show on commercial TV within the 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. "Golden Time" slot won a rating of 10 or over -- considered once the minimum for survival.Even lengthy-running implies that once appeared immortal have either been axed or take presctiption the edge. One which lately got the heave-ho after 43 seasons is period drama "Mito komon," which bowed in 1969. At its peak, the show's rankings arrived at up to 43.7, but lately it's battled to attain double numbers. Its last episode will air in December on MBS, a joint venture partner of The best spinner's.Various causes happen to be advanced for that rankings slide. Like other nations, Japanese families no more sit round the TV watching exactly the same show, as audiences did within the industry's 1960-to-the nineteen nineties heyday. Japan now consume entertainment on a variety of platforms, including Computers, mobile phones and video games.Also, an believed 100,000 homes, including lots of seniors "Mito komon" fans, unsuccessful to create the switch from analog to digital in This summer, and also have effectively quit TV entirely.However the greatest cause, states Hiro Otaka, a media analyst for that Bunka Tsushin entertainment news services, is the fact that "the programs have grown to be boring."Otaka places blame network executives who've taken care of immediately falling rankings by cutting costs and securing their bets."They do not put just as much money or creativeness in to the shows because they accustomed to, so program content has rejected," he states. "You've lots of these inexpensively made variety shows with comics, it's difficult to differentiate between them. Audiences have just become tired of the identical factor over and over."Simultaneously, well-compensated network executives have become "salarymen," Otaka states, utilizing a Japanese-British term which has an adverse connotation of conformist timeclock-puncher. Innovation could range from burgeoning satellite sector. Using wavelengths freed up through the finish from the analog broadcasts in This summer, the amount of broadcast satellite channels is skedded to develop from 12 to 31 by March.Otaka, however, is skeptical that Japanese versions of high-quality shows like "The Wire" will leave such strands."They not have the money to begin with -- Japan is really a small market in comparison towards the U.S. Also, just the terrestrial systems have true countrywide achieve. The satellite channels and native stations can't compete."Imported shows really are a potential supply of stimulus, but you will find couple of on skeds. Fuji TV broadcasts "Mad Males" at 2:30 a.m., while TV Tokyo, japan airs "24 Hrs."Fuji TV has attracted flack for programming a lot of Korean dramas -- area of the so-known as "Korean Wave" (in Japanese, hanryu) of popular culture that's been sweeping the nation previously couple of years.An believed 6,000-10,000 demonstrators protested against Korean content outdoors Fuji's headquarters August. 21. "Fuji is overdoing it," states Otaka. "It must become more selective about the standard from the Korean shows it programs. At this time, it's airing a lot of because they are cheap -- but that only adds towards the volitile manner." Contact the range newsroom at news@variety.com

The $11 Question: How The Worst Movie EVER! Scored the Worst Opening Ever

The little movie that couldn’t has become the little movie that still probably won’t but will have fun trying: Since Tuesday, when we brought you the story of The Worst Movie EVER! and its unprecedented $11 opening weekend, a groundswell of lookie-loos from around the world have made the trailer a mini-hit on YouTube and initiated something of a cult following on Facebook. It still has a ways to go before reaching The Room levels of notoriety, but for now, anyway, it can still claim one critical distinction: Nobody has any idea who its one ticket-buying viewer is. Movieline finally heard from filmmaker-actor Glenn Berggoetz a few days ago as WME! and its box-office futility began stirring interest around the Web. In a nutshell, he insisted not only that the $11 midnight gross from last Saturday (and the $0 gross from Friday) was not a publicity stunt, but also that his efforts to turn up the identity of his lone theatrical patron has yielded no success to date. The Denver-based schlock impresario added that the last 48 hours have turned up a few Facebook sources claiming to have attended the screening at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in Los Angeles, but he hasn’t been able to confirm any of them as Viewer Zero. Nor has Greg Laemmle’s team at the Sunset 5. “We’re anxious to find out as well,” Laemmle told me today. “We need proof. Glenn said he’s already had a few people claim that they were the ones. I think we need a ticket stub here. We’re going to poll the staff to see if it’s maybe someone they recognize, someone who comes to see everything we play. Who knows?” Even more baffling perhaps: How did this even happen? “There were a number of factors — and I’m not going to comment on the aesthetic qualities of the film,” Laemmle said, laughing. “There was some miscommunication, there were some delays in confirming stuff. I was rushing off to a vacation and sort of said, ‘Oh, by the way, we can go ahead if you want to.’ Glenn, I guess, was anxious to do it and said yes. But clearly, because we hadn’t necessarily confirmed the date in an appropriate fashion, he hadn’t done the work promoting the screening that he thought he could have should have done. These things happen. “Is it one of the worst showings we’ve ever had? Yeah, probably.” According to both Berggoetz and Laemmle, they had begun speaking as early as this past May about programming WME! this summer. The idea was to prime its debut by screening the now infamous trailer in front of the Sunset 5’s monthly midnight screenings of The Room. But Berggeotz said that on Aug. 14, he got word that Laemmle was ready to go ahead with an Aug. 19-20 engagement. The theater’s idea, he explained, was to test WME!’s potential as another midnight institution, with an eye on giving the last two weekends of each month to Berggoetz’s film and The Room, respectively. “I had few apprehensions,” Laemmle said, “if only because we were screening a few other midnight screenings that weekend, and I figured, ‘What’s really the loss to Laemmle in putting one more film into the theater that weekend?’ That’s why we targeted that date from the very beginning. We knew that we would be open for midnights anyway, so let’s give it a shot.” Laemmle consulted with Berggoetz, who approved and commenced a hasty marketing effort for the coming weekend screenings. “I figured I would promote the film as I had done with my previous film that received a theatrical release, To Die is Hard,” Berggoetz told me in an e-mail. “Do a bunch of social networking through e-mail and Facebook, and contact local media people and schedule interviews and reviews. I was busy all day last Monday the 15th traveling, so on Tuesday the 16th I began contacting media outlets in the L.A. area and sending out e-mails and postings.” That’s when things started to look bad. Like, very bad.

Goyokin

Tatsuya Nakadai plays a samurai overcome with guilt over his unwitting part in a massacre of a small village. Now a ronin, he learns of a scheme by his old clan to repeat the same crime. determined to stop them, he endures great hardships in an attempt to atone for his earlier mistakes.

Sirius XM Gets OK To Settle Price-Hike Suit

A judge today approved the framework of a settlement to a lawsuit subscribers filed against Sirius XM Radio charging that the satellite radio company violated terms of its merger by raising prices afterward. The class action was filed in 2009 and claimed that Sirius XM broke antitrust laws when it boosted prices and imposed a music royalty fee after the 2008 merger was approved. The deal, worth $180 million, ensures that prices and the fee will stay at current levels through year’s end and subscribers who canceled can rejoin without charge.