FX Picks Up Sheen's 'Anger Management'

Network orders 10 episodes for summer 2012, with option for 90 more

By Tim Baysinger & Andrea Morabito -- Broadcasting & Cable, 10/27/2011 6:21:41 PM

FX is bringing Charlie Sheen back to television, announcing Thursday that it has picked up the former Two and a Half Men star's new sitcom Anger Management.

The sitcom, loosely based on the 2003 film of the same name, will premiere in summer 2012, with Bruce Helford signed on as executive producer and showrunner.

FX has ordered an initial 10 episodes from Debmar-Mercury; in success it will pick up an additional 90 episodes from the distributer under the same syndication model used for several Tyler Perry sitcoms on TBS. Anger Management would air exclusively on FX until running in broadcast syndication starting in fall 2014.

The cabler already syndicates Two and a Half Men, which Sheen was famously fired from in March. In September, he settled a lawsuit against Warner Bros. and creator Chuck Lorre for a reported $25 million.

Anger Management puts Sheen in the title role as an anger management therapist who wreaks havoc on his patients' lives.

"We think that Bruce Helford, Joe Roth and Charlie Sheen have come up with a wonderful, hilarious vehicle for Charlie's acting talents -- and a character we are very much looking forward to seeing him play," said John Landgraf, president and GM, FX Networks. "Two and a Half Men has been an outstanding component of FX's schedule for the past 14 months, and we have every confidence that Anger Management will soon be as well."

The series will be the seventh original comedy on FX, joining It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Louie, Archer, The League, Wilfred and the upcoming Unsupervised.