His first engagements in Detroit and Chicago sold out on Ticketmaster.com in a record-breaking 18 minutes. Sources tell THR Sheen will pocket about $300,000 for the first two shows.
Charlie Sheen was welcomed into Cleveland on Tuesday night for the third stop on his tour, My Violent Torpedo of Truth/Defeat Is Not an Option.
In fact, the actor got another standing ovation; he also received one in Chicago on Sunday night after being booed the previous evening in Detroit. As with the Chicago crowd, Cleveland chanted “Detroit sucks!” before the show started.
The Cleveland reception perhaps isn’t surprising as Sheen often wears hats and T-shirts featuring Cincinnati Reds and Cleveland Indians logos and played Cleveland Indian Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn in Major League. He also came out onstage in an Indians jersey.
During the show, he generated cheers when he said he’s still looking to do Major League 3 and wants to shoot the film in Cleveland.
Immediately afterward, The Hollywood Reporter talked to four people who attended to get their takes.
Ben Heckerman, Akron, Ohio
“I love Two and a Half Men and Major League, and Hot Shots was one of my favorite movies growing up. So I’m a big Sheen fan. We paid 80 bucks for our tickets and would have paid more, but it sold out. When he came out with the Indians jersey on, everyone was going crazy. I didn’t know what to expect, but he surpassed my expectations. He seemed more down-to-earth and cool. He was funny and witty and engaged the crowd. It was a really fun experience. There were definitely some jackos yelling at him, but what are you spending $80 for if you just want to yell absurd comments just to get him going? They just said stupid things like quotes from his movies and kept interrupting while he was talking. Two rows in front of us, a guy was smoking pot. I could literally see and smell the smoke. [Sheen] also introduced up a new catchphrase: ‘Plan better.’ He was talking in Chicago about how he would give his shirt away to this girl but only if she took hers off first. So [in Cleveland], a woman comes out of the audiences and takes off her sweatshirt and then her tanktop and she’s standing there with a bra on. Charlie tries to put her tanktop on and then says, ‘I can’t do it. I gotta plan better.’ And he kept saying it. He formulated a new quote out of this show.”
Gina Snyder, Heckerman’s fiancee
“I am obsessed with him. Anything he does, I find hilarious. I’ve had a big crush my entire life, on all of the Sheens, Emilio [Estevez, Sheen’s brother], the whole family. I didn’t know what to expect, but I thought he was cool and did a good job of making everyone feel really loved because obviously everyone in Cleveland knows that nobody loves us. He talked about his divorce and said that the way he feels about his ex-wives is the way that all of Cleveland feels about LeBron James [the pro baskeball player ruffled hometown feather when he announced over the summer on national TV that he was switching from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Miami Heat]. He also got the audience to agree that we want him back on [Two and a Half Men]. He said he shouldn’t have to say he’s sorry to the executives, but because he’s such an amazing actor, he’s going to apologize so he can get back on the show. Anytime he said anything remotely cool, everyone in our [section] howled and stood up. It felt like Animal House.”
Julia Love, Copley, Ohio
“I loved Charlie Sheen in Two and a Half Men, but to be honest, lately since he’s left the show he’s become even more entertaining, and I love that he’s refusing to stop what he’s doing even though he got fired. He’s doing what he loves, and that impressed me, and I had to go see him. The show went beyond my expectations. Maybe Detroit just doesn’t know what it’s talking about. It was awesome, worth every penny. I paid $80 to go see him, and I would have paid four times as much, easily. As funny as it sounds, it was part of history in the way he came up with the new quote. Every time he says something new, people are going to wear it on a T-shirt, and I was there when he quoted that phrase. You can’t put a price on that.”
Ken Love, Julia’s husband
“Sheen is the kind of guy who every guy wishes he had a friend like that. I’d give anything to have a guy friend like Sheen. I would live on his couch. There’s nothing fake about him. For a guy who’s one of the biggest things in the world going on right now — after three wars and a tsunami — he came to visit me in one of the biggest shitholes besides Iraq. I was superstoked because Hollywood doesn’t always come visit us. I had seen his movies, and I thought they were cool, but I was never like a [huge] fan. That only started when all the craziness happened, and I thought, ‘This guy is awesome.’ He’s an original, love him or hate him. I was scared to death after the news reports of Detroit; I felt so bad for him because he doesn’t have a job and he’s just trying to do something. But after Chicago, he seems to be getting it together and he’s got it totally figured out now; he knows what he needs to do to make it work. He gave us a lot of respect and didn’t treat us like some po-dunk Ohio losers; he treated us like equals. That’s why he got a good response. He thanked us 50 times for coming to see him; he realizes he has nothing without his fans.”
