The Bad News Bears

The Bad News Bears
Theatrical release poster by Jack Davis
Directed byMichael Ritchie
Written byBill Lancaster
Produced byStanley R. Jaffe
Starring
CinematographyJohn A. Alonzo
Edited byRichard A. Harris
Music byJerry Fielding
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
  • April 7, 1976 (1976-04-07)
Running time
102 minutes
CountryUnited States
Languages
  • English
  • Spanish
Budget$9 million[1]
Box office$42.3 million[2]

The Bad News Bears is a 1976 American sports comedy film directed by Michael Ritchie and written by Bill Lancaster. It stars Walter Matthau as an alcoholic ex-baseball pitcher who becomes a coach for a youth baseball team known as the Bears. The film's cast includes Tatum O'Neal, Vic Morrow, Joyce Van Patten, Ben Piazza, Jackie Earle Haley and Alfred W. Lutter. Its score, composed by Jerry Fielding, adapts the principal themes of Bizet's opera Carmen.

Released by Paramount Pictures, The Bad News Bears received generally positive reviews. It was followed by two sequels, The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training in 1977 and The Bad News Bears Go to Japan in 1978, a short-lived 1979–80 CBS television series, and a 2005 remake.

  1. ^ Box Office Information for The Bad News Bears. Archived 2017-10-31 at the Wayback Machine The Wrap. Retrieved April 4, 2013.
  2. ^ "The Bad News Bears, Box Office Information". The Numbers. Retrieved January 23, 2012.