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| Edited By: |Source: Reuters |Updated: Nov 21, 2013, 01:44 PM IST
Actor Ashton Kutcher will join the cast of top-rated TV comedy Two and A Half Men, CBS television said on Friday, replacing fired star Charlie Sheen.
"We are so lucky to have someone as talented, joyful and just plain remarkable as Ashton joining our family," Chuck Lorre, creator and executive producer of Two and A Half Men said in a statement.
CBS said production on the 9th season of the comedy would start in the summer for broadcast in the fall of 2011. Friday's statement did not say which role Kutcher would play.
Kutcher, 33, is the husband of actress Demi Moore and is best known for his role as a dim-witted stoner in That '70s Show, a comedy that aired for eight seasons on Fox and remains popular in syndication.
He was last seen in the January romantic comedy No Strings Attached opposite Natalie Portman. He was an early adopter of Twitter, with a huge following of 6.8 million people.
Two and A Half Men is the most-watched TV comedy in the United States with about 15 million regular viewers and has been a lucrative source of advertising revenue for CBS, and syndication fees for its makers Warner Bros Television.
But the future of the comedy has been in disarray since Sheen was fired in March from his starring role as a womanising bachelor after weeks of erratic behavior and for publicly insulting the producers.
Production was shut down for the remaining eight episodes of the 2010-11 TV season.
"I can't wait to get to work with this ridiculously talented 2.5 team and I believe we can fill the stage with laughter that will echo in viewers' homes," Kutcher said in a statement.
"I can't replace Charlie Sheen but I'm going to work my ass off to entertain the hell out of people!", he added.
Producers have been working for weeks to retool the money-spinning show without Sheen, or add new characters. Hugh Grant was reported earlier this week to have pulled out of talks citing "creative differences."
Sheen, 45, who has been in and out of drug rehab for the last 12 months, was the highest-paid actor on US television, earning more than $1.2 million per episode.
Warner Bros. last month strongly denied claims by Sheen that the studio was in talks to reinstate him, and said there was no chance of him returning to the show.
