Hugh Grant Almost Replaced Sheen

There’s been endless speculation about who will replace Charlie Sheen on “Two and a Half Men” (personally, I think an ill-tempered llama could do the job), but today Deadline has revealed that Hugh Grant was all set to bring his charming brand of handsome blubbering to the show until he pulled out at the last minute (unlike your dad).

Grant was deep into final negotiations to replace Charlie Sheen as the lead on Two And A Half Men until he pulled out last night at the last minute due to creative differences. Insiders tell me he’d been offered more than $1 million an episode, which is the sort of $25M-a-year payday Grant doesn’t get from movies anymore… CBS has been working hard to announce the return of the show and its new star at next week’s upfronts. Maybe Grant will reconsider. Let’s hope. But it’s a decision that will affect not just CBS’ Nielsen ratings and advertising revenue but also billions of dollars of future syndication contracts for Warner Bros Television.

It’s too bad, because Grant would be a perfect fit for the show. As much as I enjoy ripping on”Two and a Half Men,” it’s never been a truly bad show. True, it’s simple and formulaic, every episode feels like the one before it, the jokes never challenge the audience, and the characters are insultingly one-dimensional — but within those parameters, the show is well-executed. Kind of like every Hugh Grant movie for the last fifteen years.