The Berenstain Bears Go to Hollywood!

Oh my goodness, my inner five-year-old (who is always quite present) is absolutely giddy right now.

The last couple of months have seen screen adaptations of a couple of my favorite childhood books: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Where the Wild Things Are. Now, another of my childhood staples is hitting the big screen.

I remember my parents reading me a different Berenstain Bears book almost every night before going to bed, complete with different voices for each of the characters and the occasional insertion of mine and my brother’s names in place of Sister Bear and Brother Bear.

Now, the beloved family of The Berenstain Bears is getting its own feature film, courtesy of Walden Media who recently acquired the movie rights to the series.

Clearly, my inner five-year-old is filled with sentimental excitement.

For those of you who happen to be unfamiliar with the series, The Berenstain Bears is a series of books following Mama Bear, Papa Bear, Brother Bear and Sister Bear as they encounter various life issues. Each book tackles a different issue, ranging from everything from cheating on tests to healthy eating habits to dealing with envy.

The books present the issues in a way that’s accessible and understandable for kids, and leaves them with a moral message to take away from what they’ve read.

Walden Media’s goal with the film is to create a family friendly comedy that mixes live action and CGI characters. I’ll be curious to see how well they manage to capture the look of the bears in a medium so different from the classic look we all know and love.

The movie will be produced under Shawn Levy’s (director of the Night at the Museum films) 21 Laps Banner along with Nelvana, the producer of the PBS cartoon series of The Berenstain Bears.

Since the series was created by Stan and Jan Berenstain in 1962, 250 Berenstain Bears titles have been published, with over 260 million books sold. The series has already seen television adaptations with various NBC specials in the ’70s and ’80s, as well as two animated series.