Bear Grylls and Discovery Fall Out Over Contract Agreements Ending Popular Show Man Vs Wild

Man vs Wild is over!  According to reports from The Hollywood Reporter, Discovery has terminated their contract with Bear Grylls, thus ending a Seven Season relationship.  A spokesperson for the network release a statement confirming initial reports,

Due to a continuing contractual dispute with Bear Grylls, Discovery has terminated all current productions with him,

It has been made clear that Grylls was not happy with this decision and would have liked a different outcome.  His publicist Heather Krug released a statement on Grylls behalf,

“Bear’s goal has always been to make life-empowering shows for his many fans around the globe, and he has taken great risks to bring Discovery such award-winning programming over seven seasons, Unfortunately, Bear and Discovery have not been able to come to mutual agreement on new programming, and he disagrees with Discovery’s decision to terminate current productions. Bear has loved the Man vs. Wild journey and looks forward to producing further cutting-edge content again soon for his loyal audience.”

I’m sure Grylls didn’t agree.  He has become an international celebrity largely due to this show.

Grylls served in Britain’s’ elite Special Air Service and was highly trained in parachuting, jungle warfare, and combat survival.  He climbed Mt. Everest at age 23.  All of these skills and more were put to use on his show where sometimes he would be dropped(literally via parachute) in the middle of a jungle and left to survive by eating snakes.

Grylls has road the “Man vs Wild” train right into “Cha-Ching” ville.  He has gained endorsement deals with Dockers and Degree Deodorant.  He has his own iPhone app, a clothing line, and even a “Man vs Wild” video game.

WHAT WAS THE CONTRACT DISAGREEMENT OVER?

It’s very unclear what the discrepancy was, but there are hints that it had to do with two projects that Discovery had Grylls slated for that he initially agreed to, but opted not to take part in.

It will be interesting to see who will replace Grylls as the face, “so to speak”, for Discovery.  They profited from him just as much if not more than he did from them.  I bet they ki$$ and make up with a new contract as there were several lucrative projects in the pipeline with Grylls name on it.  Pulling down 1.1 million viewers per episode is nothing to sneeze at for a cable network predicated on learning. If this is the end, Grylls presence on the network will indeed be missed.

-COSMO