The Bear Was Originally Served Up As A Movie Before FX Changed Up The Order

Hungry for a scoop about "The Bear" while you wait for the first of Season 2's 10 episodes to hit Hulu and FX? It turns out the restaurant-focused comedy-drama was conceived as a feature-length property before being pivoted to a series.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter TV's Top 5 Podcast, "The Bear" showrunner, executive producer, and director Joanna Calo said that series creator and executive producer Christopher Storer pitched the series to Fox as a full-length film. But it was ultimately chopped up into bite-sized series-length portions due to the intensity of its subject matter.

But that doesn't change how Storer, Calo, and the show's other executive producers approach how they create the program. "It originally being a feature, I think we often tried to think of it as still just one big feature. And so how could we tell the story without hitting people over the head with it? Is it a different experience to just live in this kitchen and get lost in the food and letting the food represent [the] connection between these people as if you're making a musical and there's a dance number," Calo said. 

The showrunner added that she knew the cast's strong performances and the quality of the show's scripts would come through in time, no matter how long or short each episode of "The Bear" proved to be.

Joanna Calo admitted that the choice to make "The Bear" a series instead of a movie happened before she was added to the program, but she agreed with FX executives' edict that audience members definitely needed some breathing room between trips to Carmy's (Jeremy Allen White) kitchen. "Chris [Storer] and I really stayed true to what we wanted the voice to be. ... It's like, would you really want to be in that kitchen for more than half an hour at a time? I think you need a little credit break to get you through. These things were honestly just told to us, and we were so grateful that FX wanted to make the show that we were like, "OK, yeah, sure," she said.

Calo added that sometimes dragging out the tension inherent in working in a kitchen actually benefits the show. That's something they definitely couldn't have done had "The Bear" been a movie. She mentioned a scene in their pilot script where Carmy explodes at his kitchen staff. The moment was discarded in favor of allowing pressure to build over a string of episodes, causing the eventual expression of the character's anger to both feel true to life and to the story. Since Christopher Storer based Carmy's life on, among other sources, real-life restaurateur Joseph Zucchero, that just adds to the truly authentic flavor of "The Bear." Fans will find out if the show's still got countertop appeal soon enough.