Melissa McCarthy's Very Good Year Now Includes a CBS Pilot Deal
Today in film and television: Charlie Sheen's lawsuit against Warner Bros. is reportedly nearing a settlement, Melissa McCarthy's post-Bridesmaids bounce continues, and the questionable new Bonnie and Clyde movie finds a new leading lady.
Charlie Sheen's character died last night on the season premiere of Two and a Half Men like an exploding "balloon full of meat," but the news wasn't all bad for the former highest-paid man on television. According to the Los Angeles Times, the actor is finalizing a settlement in the $100 million wrongful termination suit he filed against Warner Bros. in March after being fired from Two and a Half Men after a series of increasingly loopy and combative public appearances, which may or may not have all been part of a canny PR strategy. A source tells the Times that Sheen will "receive about $25 million" in the settlement, a figure that's "derived primarily from Sheen's participation in profits from the show," since his contract was set to expire in May 2012. Through spokesmen, Warner Bros. is still officially denying a deal has been reached. [Los Angeles Times]
It's tough to argue any member of the Bridesmaids ensemble has benefited more from the film's success than Melissa McCarthy. In the last six months, she's sold a caper script to Paramount about two women who plot to steal the Stanley Cup, been cast opposite Jason Bateman in ID Theft (which was rewritten just to get her), been booked to host Saturday Night Live on October 1, and won an Emmy for her work on Mike & Molly. Now she's sold a pilot script for a multi-camera sitcom to CBS. McCarthy tells Deadline the untitled script is "about a woman in her mid-40s who has a spectacular midlife crisis” and examines "what a midlife crisis means for a woman, which is very different from the way it affects men.” [Deadline]
Boyz N the Hood director John Singleton hasn't made a movie in six years, but he has big plans for a biopic of hip-hop group N.W.A starring original group member Ice Cube. “I can’t talk about it too prematurely about the stuff I’m doing because nothing’s come to fruition yet, but Cube and I are talking about doing the N.W.A. story,” Singleton told indieWire's The Playlist during a promotion appearance for his new film Abduction. “The script is really, really good, and so we’re just figuring it out. New Line really wants to make it.” Cube announced back in 2009 that he was developing a movie about the group at New Line, with Dr. Dre and Easy E's widow on-board as producers. We'd advise against getting too excited, considering the downsizing efforts at New Line since Warner Bros. absorbed the company in 2008. [IndieWire]
If you thought Hillary Duff dropping out/getting fired due to pregnancy would put the kibosh on the dubious idea of a new Bonnie and Clyde movie, you underestimate Cypress Moon Productions and its dedication to a project that will inevitably be compared with one of the greatest movies ever, the 1967 classic Bonnie & Clyde starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as the star-crossed Depression-era bank robbers. The studio announced Monday that Lindsay Pulsipher will replace Duff as Bonnie Parker in their Bonnie and Clyde story, which is called The Story of Bonnie and Clyde. Who is Lindsay Pulsipher? According to IMDB, she's done lots of guest shots on television and is filming a mini-series about the Hatfields and McCoys with Kevin Costner. So there isn't much to go on. Of course, Faye Dunaway only had two credits when Penn cast her as Bonnie. But unless 1967 Warren Beatty magically appears to fill the vacant roll of Clyde, this is giving off straight-to-Netflix vibes. [The Hollywood Reporter]
