Say Your Prayers, Berenstain Bears: You're a Movie Now
Hollywood anthropologists have stumbled upon a new relic from your youth to CGI into real-world scenarios! USA Today reports Shawn Levy, the man responsible for making museum displays attack/befriend Ben Stiller, is producing a live-action/CGI adaptation of your favorite pompadoured, ursine children's book characters, The Berenstain Bears:
Writers have yet to be hired, but Levy says he wants the film to be an original story incorporating details from some of the more popular Berenstain books."I'd like the film to be un-ironic about its family connections but have a wry comedic sensibility that isn't oblivious to the fact that they're bears," Levy says. "The comedy comes from this bear family coexisting in a more recognizably real world."
Levy compared his vision of the film to the tone of Will Ferrell's Elf, which had a sweet, earnest hero who clashed with his cynical surroundings. "I think the movie will be witty but never sarcastic," he says.
Elf worked because Will Ferrell appeared normal to members of the real world, making his eccentric behavior bewildering to normal people attempting to interact with him and amusing if not tiresome to those of us in on his origins. How is this going to work like Elf? The Berenstain Bears are fucking bears. Papa Bear walks out of the house, someone is eventually going to say, "Holy shit, that's a bipedal bear with a hairdo dressed like Bob Vila! Call the police!" Is this film going to take place in some bizarre otherverse wherein human-like bears are acceptable but naïve bears that strictly obey a '50s family structure and ethics code with strict gender roles are weird? This picture book concept has suddenly become really confusing.