Breaking Bear has just been announced, and the animated show is set to feature a standout voice cast that includes Brendan Fraser and Sarah Michelle Gellar. Fraser will be best known to many for leading the cast of The Mummy (1999) and its two sequels, but he has also appeared in a host of other film projects, recently experiencing a major acting comeback with his Oscar-winning performance in The Whale (2022). Gellar, on the other hand, rose to fame around the same time with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and recently appeared in Dexter: Original Sin.

Per Deadline, Fraser, Gellar, Annie Murphy, Elizabeth Hurley, and Josh Gad have been cast to lead Breaking Bear, a new adult animated series from Tubi. The series, which is created by Julien Nitzberg, is said to parody the tropes of mobster movies, with the report stating that the show will be akin to a comedic combination of Yogi Bear and The Sopranos. The official logline for Breaking Bear is included below:

“A fur-flying, law-breaking, forest-saving rampage following a dysfunctional family of bears who go full criminal to stop frackers, mobsters, and a psychotic wolf pack from destroying their home. As they spiral deeper into the criminal abyss, they face off against biker gangs, an egomaniacal news anchor, and their own spectacular talent for self-sabotage.”

Fraser is set to play Jer, the oldest of the Bear siblings, who thinks of himself as the family mastermind. Jer's opinion of himself is highly flawed, however, and he is actually lazy, with his cluelessness often causing the family problems. Gellar will voice the middle sister and actual brains of the family, Blair. This bear is the one who ends up solving the problems that Jer ends up causing for the family, but her efforts often go overlooked.

Murphy is set to voice a human character named Tawny, who is described as a good-looking local news anchor who has ambitions to become the leading newscaster in the country. Hurley will play Wolf Queen, who will serve as the forest's fierce guardian. Wolf Queen is presented as an antagonist to the Bears, with her approach to protecting the forest actually doing it more harm than good. Finally, Gad will play Alistari, the youngest sibling of the Bear family. He's set to be an unpredictable character, displaying shy moments of anxiety before flying off the handle in surprising ways.

Adam Lewinson, the Chief Content Officer at Tubi, shared the following statement about Breaking Bear:

“With Brendan, Sarah, Annie, Elizabeth and Josh, we have an incredible cast of series regulars. Breaking Bear is our wild, no-holds-barred send-up of classic mob sagas—from Scarface to Goodfellas—as a dysfunctional crew of bears crash headfirst into the world of crime, all in a desperate bid to save their forest. It’s bold, it’s chaotic, and we’re here for every outrageous second.”

What This Means For Breaking Bear

The Tubi Show's Breaking Bad Connection Explained

The Breaking Bear title is most certainly a play on Breaking Bad, a hit crime drama that aired on AMC from 2008 to 2013. Breaking Bad isn't really a series about the mob, but it does deal with organized crime over the course of Walter White's descent into becoming a drug kingpin. As revealed in the synopsis, Breaking Bear will follow a similar premise, with the Bear family seemingly not starting off as criminals, but becoming them over time as their forest home is threatened.

As for the cast, most of the key voice actors do have experience in animation. Fraser, for example, had voiced roles in the 2014 animated comedy The Nut Job, as well as 2013's Escape from Planet Earth. Gellar, too, is no stranger to animation, with voice-only work in Happily N'Ever After (2007) and TMNT (2007). Gad has perhaps made the biggest mark in animation, with the actor having voiced Olaf in Frozen (2013) and its 2019 sequel. He's now set to return as part of the cast of Frozen 3, which is scheduled for 2027.

Our Take On Breaking Bear

The Cast Is Reason Enough To Be Excited

Though animation is often thought of as a genre for younger audiences, plenty of adult-oriented animated shows continue to find success. Rick & Morty, for example, is one of the biggest shows in the world of animation, and other series like Futurama and Family Guy also have loyal fanbases. The quality and inventiveness of the writing is a major reason for these shows' success, but so too is the voice acting. Breaking Bear is already on fairly sure footing with the latter.

Nitzberg has experience in the world of animation, having served as a writer and producer on Mike Judge Presents: Tales from the Tour Bus (2017). In live-action, Nitzberg directed The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia (2009).

The premise of Breaking Bear makes it a unique series in the broader animation landscape, and it could be exciting to see mob movie tropes poked fun at in this way. With no shortage of titles to pull from in both movies and TV, the series already seemingly has the potential to run for multiple seasons. While it's too early to predict Breaking Bear's long-term prospects, season 1 is evidently one to look forward to.

Source: Deadline