Endemol Beyond Plans Series With Its Biggest Celebrity Yet, Mr. Bean

Endemol’s shiny new digital arm, Endemol Beyond recently inked deals with Pitbull and Courtney Love, but even those high-profile A-listers pale in comparison to one of the latest celebrities with which the company will do business.

Rowan Atkinson is reportedly reviving his famous Mr. Bean for an animated series to be distributed through the iconic British television character’s YouTube channel. This is a big deal because, unbeknownst to any denizen of the United States, Mr. Bean is popular. Very popular. In fact, judging by social media statistics, there are few people in the world who are more popular.

Mr. Bean’s YouTube channel has a substantial 1.1+ million subscribers (and went through a kind of relaunch during YouTube’s Comedy Week), but his Facebook page is where his popularity starts to become impressive. He currently has over 51 million Facebook fans

. That ranks his page as the 30th most popular in the world. By comparison, Taylor Swift currently has just under 54 million Facebook fans, Megan Fox has over 47 million, and Disney has over 46 million.

Endemol came to the Mr. Bean opportunity by way of a recent acquisition. The international television production and distribution company acquired Tiger Aspect back in 2009, the shingle originally behind the Mr. Bean TV series and its three subsequent animated versions.

The launch is expected for the Fall. In the meantime, here’s a sampling of the type of comedy you can expect: