FX bets on Charlie Sheen

Posted by Theresa Milano On Sunday, January 15th 2012 in Movies

FX president John Landgraf was not afraid to defend his decision to risk with Charlie Sheen and the actor’s future project Anger Management. Landgraf is not afraid of the situation even if he did not see a script so far.

“I walked into the pitch as sceptical as you might imagine I would be,” Landgraf told reporters during the Television Critics Association press tour that took place in Pasadena. “It was just a really excellent pitch. I think some of you saw Charlie last weekend and I think you saw a very different Charlie Sheen. And I saw that guy in the room. I saw a really good pitch for a comedy series. Funny and complicated and I think the character he ought to be playing at this point — somebody with a checkered past but pretty self aware.”

FX is going to buy 10 episodes of Anger Management. Moreover, if the show is popular enough it is going to buy 90 more episodes. A reporter asked whether Sheen’s history of domestic violence makes him suitable for the show.

“[The reporter] feels Charlie shouldn’t have a place in popular culture, that with his crimes, he should be banished to Siberia,” Landgraf said. “Charlie wants to get his house in order and deal with the issues of substance abuse and relationships within his own family, and have greater consciousness, and do a show where he has more complicatedly positive relationships with women … my opinion is that could be a good thing, not just for Charlie, but for society. I believe in redemption … I’m all for giving him the opportunity for turning things around.”