Charlie Sheen's 'Two And A Half Men' Lawsuit Could End Any Day

Whatever's nudged Charlie Sheen toward contrition and sensibility, it might've spared Warner Bros. and the "Two and a Half Men" creator a drawn-out legal battle.

It's expected that the three principle parties haggling over Sheen's alleged $100-million damages following his March firing from the Emmy-nominated show will finalize settlement terms within days, TMZ reported Monday evening. Speculation says that Sheen will be accepting far less than expected.

For one thing, he won't be receiving a $100-million payout.

TMZ reports that Sheen will instead accept a $25-million payment from Warner Bros. It won't exactly be a windfall, because that amount reportedly includes mostly money the studio would've already paid Sheen for episodes already shot and profits he'd already contractually earned from the show. He'll also receive contuing syndication residuals when episodes in which he appeared air (which should be a nice sum, considering that Monday night's season premiere is one of the few in the series' run that hasn't featured Sheen.)

It's expected that over the next seven to 10 years or so of syndication, Sheen's residuals will in fact have paid him right around $100 million on top of the $25-million payment he should soon receive. Though Sheen's attorneys argued that he's entitled to payment for future episodes under his current deal, he won't be receiving any payments from the Ashton Kutcher era forward. Sheen has shot a total over 180 episodes of the series from its debut to the conclusion of the show's previous season.

Word was that Sheen had been approaching a 180-degree turn in his lifestyle, but his recent appearances seem to back it up. Sheen snapped the above photo with Kutcher backstage at Sunday night's 63rd Annual Emmy Awards and wished his replacement the best. The prior Friday, Sheen was a guest on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" and told Leno that after the way he'd behaved toward the end of his "Two and a Half Men" tenure, "I'd have fired my ass, too."

Appearing before a live audience during the Emmys, Sheen sounded ready to bury the hatchet in his feud over his firing and that he wanted to be . . . well, maybe not the "bigger" man at this point, but a bigger man than he's been.