(
)
“Two and a Half Men” ushers in the Ashton Kutcher era Aug. 1, The Post has learned.
That’s Kutcher’s first day of work on the Warner Bros. lot in LA with castmates Jon Cryer and Angus T. Jones — and the first read-through of the episode that promises to finish off Charlie Sheen’s character once and for all.
Meanwhile, Sheen appears to be closing in on a deal for a new sitcom with the same producers who make “Mad Men.”
The comedy would most likely be a takeoff on Sheen’s real tabloid-crazy life — with Sheen playing a version on himself, an actor with spectacular personal demons, sources say.
The show would be for cable TV — where the strictures on language and nudity are not as strong as on broadcast TV.
Sheen would end up owning a piece of the show himself — something he wanted but could never get with “Two and a Half Men” — the sources said.
A spokesman for Lionsgate, the mainstream Hollywood production company said to be behind the deal, declined to comment yesterday.
The new Sheen show would not be ready until the summer or fall of 2012 at the earliest.
The push is on to make a deal sometime before Kutcher goes before the cameras to tape his first episode as the new lead actor on “Two and a Half Men.” CBS said this week that it plans to air the episode Sept. 19.
It promises to be one of the most-watched episodes of a TV sitcom of all time as viewers — even those who never saw the show before — tune in to see how Sheen’s character is dispatched after eight tumultuous seasons and how Kutcher fills out the role as the show’s new central character.
Details of the “Men” episode are one of the industry’s most heavily guarded secrets. Even the name of Kutcher’s character — and how he’ll be integrated into the “Men” universe — is unknown at this point.
“They’re keeping a big lid on that,” says a source.
Kutcher, 33, is 12 years younger than Sheen and 13 years younger than Cryer — so it will be interesting to see how his character is introduced into the show’s storyline.
Writers for the show have been working on the script “for a while,” says the source. There are unsourced reports that Sheen’s character, bad boy Charlie Harper, will drive off a cliff to his death.
There’s no guarantee that Kutcher will tape his first episode in front of a live audience — which “Men” has always done in the past — “but I think it will go that way,” says a source.
Sheen, known for his epic partying and drug abuse, was fired last March after blasting Warner Bros., CBS and series creator Chuck Lorre, losing his $30 million-a-year gig in the process.