Hollywood takes high road with ‘Cocaine Bear’
On Dec. 22, 1985, the Associated Press reported the following from Blue Ridge, Ga.:
“Investigators 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 multimilliondollar high.”
Police found a sad scene. A 175-pound 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, Tenn. His unmanned airplane crashed into a North Carolina mountain. Back in Georgia, the bear, examiners said, had overdosed.
The stranger-than-fiction tale quickly receded from the headlines. That changed when screenwriter Jimmy Warden delivered to producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller a script titled “Cocaine Bear.” They were on board from page one.
“When the movie’s pitched, you hear the word ‘Cocaine,’ you’re like I’m not sure what to think of this,” Lord said. “Then when you hear the word ‘Bear,’ you’re like: I’m all in.”
Since the trailer first debuted for “Cocaine Bear,” Elizabeth Banks’ 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 prepackaged, the makers of “Cocaine Bear” think it can be an untamed exception.
“Hopefully the film lives up to the title,” Banks said. “That was the goal.”
Everything about the movie is propelled by a tongue-incheek sense of humor and can-you-believe-this-is-a-realmovie wink. “I’m the bear who ate cocaine,” reads one of the film’s official tweets. “This is my story.”
While most studio movies are driven by well-known intellectual property and few original comedies manage to attract audiences in theaters, “Cocaine Bear” is here to strike a blow to business-as-usual in Hollywood. “Cocaine Bear” is here to be bold. “Cocaine Bear” is here to party.
“You have to demonstrate theatricality to get the greenlight. It just means you have to swing the bat a little harder,” Lord said. “In this world that’s increasingly mechanized, things that don’t feel mechanized have really special value.”
Miller and Lord have in recent years shepherded some of the most vibrant and irreverent films to the screen, including “The Lego Movie,” “Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse” and “The Mitchells vs. the Machines.” They like to take apart old conventions and give them an absurdist, postmodern spin.
“Certainly, this movie was not mandated by a corporation,” Miller said, laughing. “It’s a thing we somehow snuck through the system. That’s how we love to make all our movies, like: ‘I can’t believe they let us get away with this.’”
Warden had been a production assistant on their 2012 action comedy “21 Jump Street.” After hearing about the 1985 story, he 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.
“What’s funny is that we thought it would be difficult because of the subject matter. But surprisingly, they were excited right from the jump and didn’t shy away from the movie, its tone or even its title,” Miller said.
Since her directorial debut in 2015’s “Pitch Perfect 2,” Banks has carved out a second career behind the camera. She last helmed 2019’s “Charlie’s Angels.” With Universal’s backing and Lord and Miller producing, “Cocaine Bear” struck her as not just a viable, actually happening project but one where she could marry a gory animal attack movie with comedy.
“Most people are surprised that it is a real thing and very surprised that I’m the person that made it,” she said.
Though the title meant “Cocaine Bear” would be limited from some advertising platforms, the filmmakers describe the studio as interested in leaning into what made the movie distinct. Nothing, it turned out, could cut through all the noise like “Cocaine Bear.”
“They love things with strong flavor. That’s the word I hear a lot in my marketing meetings,” Banks said. “It’s
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.”
The movie 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. The rest of the cast includes Keri Russell, Margo Martindale, Alden Ehrenreich, O’shea Jackson and Ray Liotta in one of the final performances before his death last May.
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 Once” as recent proof.
“It could win best picture and it’s the zaniest idea out there,” he said. “For the scale of that movie, it’s a huge hit. What we’re after is demonstrating that these movies can be original and fun and surprising and they can be hits.”