Disney prepping 2nd 'Country Bears' installment

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - With "The Country Bears" still a year away from release, Disney has hired "Bears" scribe Paul Rugg to write a sequel. The first "Bears" movie, inspired by the Country Bear Jamboree park attraction at Disneyland, is in postproduction and slated for a summer 2002 release. It features Christopher Walken and the voices of Haley Joel Osment and Charles Dutton, along with sophisticated puppets from the Henson Creature Shop.

Disney VP production Brigham Taylor, who is overseeing the project with production head Nina Jacobson for the studio, said the impetus to turn "Bears" into a potential franchise grew out of "excitement at the studio" over the progress of the first film.