The creative minds at Animaccord faced a challenge most animation studios would envy: Where do you take a character who has racked up 235 billion views on YouTube?
The answer, it turns out, is somewhere entirely new — and that’s what has fans of the plucky, adventurous Masha buzzing ahead of the release of Masha and the Three Bears. The new series will be showcased at the Annecy Animation Festival (which runs June 21-27), with its first trailer expected to debut ahead of MIPCOM and Brand Licensing Europe in the fall. A global rollout is planned for the second half of 2027, introducing audiences to three new characters — Senior Bear, Middle Bear and Junior Bear — and a narrative arc built around the universal themes of parenting and family.
“We spent a long time thinking about what story we wanted to tell next,” says Magdalena Weremiuk, chief commercial officer at Animaccord, which is based in Cyprus. “One thing we knew was that we had a strong foundation in reimagining folklore for modern families. That naturally led us to the classic story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears and, admittedly, we have always had a special affinity for stories about bears.”
The Masha character has her roots in folklore, but the new production also draws on popular culture. “One of our references was Three Men and a Baby, which inspired the dynamic of multiple caregivers looking after a child,” says Weremiuk. “We combined that concept with the traditional fairy tale and then developed distinct personalities for each bear. To build the comedy, we also looked at iconic father figures from film, including Les Compères with Pierre Richard and Gérard Depardieu. We wanted contrasting parenting styles and comedic archetypes: the strict one, the fun one, the meticulous one, and the gentle, more emotional one. Those differences became the foundation for both the humor and the character relationships.”
