NEW YORK (AP) ā On Dec. 22, 1985, The Associated Press
āInvestigators searching for cocaine dropped by an airborne smuggler have found a ripped-up shipment of the sweet-smelling powder and the remains of a bear that apparently died of a multimillion-dollar high.ā
Police found a sad scene. A 175-lb. black bear dead near a duffle bag and some $2 million worth of cocaine that had been opened and scattered over a hillside. The parachutist, a former Kentucky narcotics investigator, had fallen to his death in a backyard in Knoxville, Tennessee. His unmanned airplane crashed into a North Carolina mountain. Back in Georgia, the bear, examiners said, had overdosed.
The story is in many ways too much. Too absurd. Too ā80s. Even the screenwriters of the āFast & Furiousā movies would think it far-fetched. The stranger-than-fiction tale quickly receded from the headlines and, before some began to stoke the myth of āPablo Escobear,ā it mostly stayed buried in news media archives.
That changed when screenwriter Jimmy Warden delivered to producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller a script titled āCocaine Bear.ā They were on board from page one.
āWhen the movieās pitched, you hear the word āCocaine,ā youāre like Iām not sure what to think of this,ā Lord says. āThen when you hear the word āBear,ā youāre like: Iām all in.ā
Yes, is a real movie. And after it opens in theaters Friday, it might even be a hit. Since the trailer first debuted for Elizabeth Banksā very, very loosely based-on-a-true-story R-rated comedy has stoked a rabid zeitgeist. At a time when much in Hollywood can feel pre-packaged, the makers of āCocaine Bearā think it can be an untamed exception.
āHopefully the film lives up to the title,ā Banks says, smiling. āThat was the goal.ā
Little on the movie calendar has captured the public imagination quite like āCocaine Bear.ā Its trailer, watched more than 25 million times, immediately went viral. The movie, itself, is like a meme sprung to life ā a kind of spiritual heir to crossed with a Paddington Bear fever dream. Everything about it is propelled by a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor and can-you-believe-this-is-a-real-movie wink. āIām the bear who ate cocaine,ā reads . āThis is my story.ā
While most studio movies are driven by well-known intellectual property and few original comedies manage to attract audiences in theaters, āCocaine Bearā is here to strike a blow to business-as-usual in Hollywood. āCocaine Bearā is here to be bold. āCocaine Bearā is here to party.
āYou have to demonstrate theatricality to get the greenlight. It just means you have to swing the bat a little harder,ā Lord says. āIn this world thatās increasingly mechanized, things that donāt feel mechanized have really special value.ā
Miller and Lord have in recent years shepherded some of the most vibrant and irreverent films to the screen, including and They like to take apart old conventions and give them an absurdist, post-modern spin.
āCertainly, this movie was not mandated by a corporation,ā Miller says, laughing. āItās a thing we somehow snuck through the system. Thatās how we love to make all our movies, like: āI canāt believe they let us get away with this.āā
Warden had been a production assistant on their 2012 action comedy ā21 Jump Street." After hearing about the 1985 story, Warden wrote the script on spec and hoped his old bosses would like it. Intrigued at the screenplay's possibility, the producers found an unexpectedly open reception from Universal Pictures chief Donna Langley.
āWhatās funny is that we thought it would be difficult because of the subject matter. But surprisingly, they were excited right from the jump and didnāt shy away from the movie, its tone or even its title,ā says Miller. āWe thought at some point, someone was going to say, āWell you canāt call it āCocaine Bear.ā You have to call it āA Walk in the Woods.ā"
Since her directorial debut in 2015's āPitch Perfect 2,ā Banks has carved out a second career behind the camera. She last helmed 2019's āCharlie's Angels." With Universal's backing and Lord and Miller producing, āCocaine Bearā struck her as not just a viable, actually-happening project but one where she could marry a gory animal attack movie with comedy.
āMost people are surprised that it is a real thing, and very surprised that Iām the person that made it,ā says Banks, laughing. āI just got a text from someone who was like, āIāve been hearing about this movie and I had no idea you made it.āā
Though the title meant āCocaine Bearā would be limited from some advertising platforms, the filmmakers describe the studio as interested in leaning into what made the film distinct from the all the options viewers are inundated with. Nothing, it turned out, could cut through all the noise like āCocaine Bear.ā
āThey love things with strong flavor. Thatās the word I hear a lot in my marketing meetings," Banks says. āItās harder and harder to find things that are theatrically exciting. The hope was that we were making something people needed to leave their house to see.ā
The film, itself, takes the basis of the real story and imagines what might have transpired if the bear didn't quickly die but went on a coke-fueled rampage through a national forest, terrorizing park wardens, campers and drug dealers seeking the lost shipment. After an initial taste, the bear goes after more cocaine with all the zeal of Yogi pursuing a picnic basket.
The bear, named Cokie, was a CGI concoction created by Weta FX with Allen Henry, a stunt man and student of Andy Serkis, performing motion capture. He wore all black and walked on all fours with prosthetic arms. The rest of the cast includes Keri Russell, Margo Martindale, Alden Ehrenreich, O'Shea Jackson and Ray Liotta. It's one of Liotta's final performances before his , and one that connects back to his similarly cocaine-laced performance in āGoodfellas."
āIāve said that this film felt very risky. The risk was: I was never going to have the lead character of the movie on the set of the movie,ā Banks says. āThat was truly what scared me the most. If the bear didnāt work, the movie falls apart.ā
Lord and Miller hope that there's a rising realization within the film industry that movies that are audaciously original can pack theaters. Lord points to the Academy Awards favorite "Everything Everywhere All at Onceā as recent proof.
āIt could win best picture and itās the zaniest idea out there,ā Lord says. āFor the scale of that movie, itās a huge hit. What weāre after is demonstrating that these movies can be original and fun and surprising and they can be hits.ā
āI canāt think of a movie that came out last year that wouldnāt have been maybe a little bit better if there had a been a cocaine-fueled bear on a rampage as part of it," adds Miller. "Imagine if āThe Banshees of Inisherinā had a big bear just running through biting that guyās fingers off.ā
If it's successful, āCocaine Bearā could, of course, become a franchise of its own. A sequel isn't out the question. āLSD Armadilloā? āQuaalude Tortoiseā? Banks, for now, is deferring.
āSomebody will put something into the AI chat bot and it will spit out something ridiculous and the internet will write it for us.ā
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Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP
Jake Coyle, The Associated Press
