20th Century FOX: BJ and the Bear to be made into feature film starring Gosling, Culkin

Hollywood--Studio giant Twentieth Century FOX announced today that the popular late 1970s and early '80s television show BJ and the Bear will be made into a feature film for release in the summer of 2013. Ryan Gosling will play renegade truck driver BJ McKay, and, in an effort to save money, the sidekick chimpanzee Bear will be played by a costume-wearing Macaulay Culkin. "This is a very complicated character and I look forward to the challenge," said Gosling, at a press conference announcing the new film, about playing Billie Joe McKay. "I look forward to working with Macaulay, and, let's be honest, driving a rig." Bear died in 1984, after crashing an 18-wheeler in the Arizona desert during a Mother's Against Drunk Driving (M.A.D.D.) fundraising campaign that had planned for the chimpanzee to drive solo across the country. He had started in California. The movie will be filmed mostly in southern California and select locations around the country, and joins the Dukes of Hazard, 21 Jump Street, Starsky and Hutch and the Flintstones, as popular television-to-big screen remakes. BJ and the Bear also spawned nearly five pornographic films by the same name during the '80s and early '90s, which were banned in nearly sixty countries (including the U.S.) because of animal rights violations.