A TV reboot of The Bad News Bears is in the works at CBS.
According to Deadline, the new series follows a "down-on-her-luck divorced mom [who] coaches a team of misfits in a cutthroat Little League." Black-ish writer Corey Nickerson is set to pen the script, drawing on her own personal experiences from coaching her son's baseball team.
The original 1976 sports comedy, directed by Michael Ritchie, starred Walter Matthau as an alcoholic ex-ball player who becomes a coach for a Little League team of delinquent players. The movie's success spawned two sequels: Michael Pressman's The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training in 1977, and John Berry's The Bad News Bears Go to Japan in 1978, as well as short-lived CBS series based on the franchise that aired in 1979. The series starred then up-and-coming star Corey Feldman, as well as Jack Warden as the coach.
A raunchy reimagining came out in 2005, directed by and starring Billy Bob Thorton as Matthau's Morris Buttermaker.
Bad News Bears isn't the first underdog baseball film to receive the TV treatment: Amazon's A League of Their Own, starring Abbi Jacobson, D'Arcy Carden, Chante Adams, and Kelly McCormack, premiered earlier this year to rave reviews.
The series will most likely stream on Paramount Plus, which is the home to other CBS shows such as Ghosts and Yellowjackets.
For more, check out our list of the best new TV shows coming your way in 2022 and beyond, or, check out our roundup of the 11 underrated comedies you need to watch right now.
