New Bear Grylls Netflix Specials Will Have 'Bandersnatch'-Style Interaction

We can’t bear the wait. Bear Grylls will return to action with two new Netflix specials… and he needs help from you and your family. That’s right, the specials will be interactive, upping the stakes and dropping viewers directly into the exciting adventures. The first movie, Animals on the Loose: A You Vs. Wild Movie, will premiere on February 16, and Fatherly is pleased to share a first look at the trailer. (Watch above!)

Animals on the Loose: A You Vs. Wild Movie will run anywhere from 45 to 90 minutes, depending on which prompts – traverse, swim, run, for example – you and your kids select. As for the story, it unfolds at a South African animal sanctuary, where the facility’s protective fence has been breached, allowing a lion and a baboon to escape. Bear arrives to rescue the mischievous baboon and hungry lion and to mend the fence before other animals make a break for it. What do you do when the lion races toward you? Climb a tree or crawl under your truck? How do you reach that wily baboon across the water? It’s YOUR choice. That’s right, the choose-your-own-adventure feature that Netflix used on Black Mirror: Bandersnatch and Puss In Boots,

And as Bear notes in the trailer, “It all comes down to making good survival decisions.” And, for good measure, there are massive chunks of elephant dung, which will get the kids laughing.

The second interactive movie Bear Grylls adventure will premiere later in 2021. Both will be on Netflix.