Yes, ‘Cocaine Bear’ is a real movie. It’s also a true story
NEW YORK (AP) — On Dec. 22, 1985, The Associated Press reported the following from Blue Ridge, Georgia:
“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 multimillion- dollar high.”
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 ‘80s. Even the screenwriters of the “Fast & Furious” 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 “Pablo Escobear,” 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 “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 says. “Then when you hear the word ‘Bear,’ you’re like: I’m all in.”
Yes, “Cocaine Bear” is a real movie. And after it opens in theaters Friday, it might even be a hit. Since the trailer first debuted for Elizabeth Banks’ very, very loosely based-on-a-truestory R-rated comedy has stoked a rabid zeitgeist. At a time when much in Hollywood can feel pre-packaged, the makers of “Cocaine Bear” think it can be an untamed exception.
“Hopefully the film lives up to the title,” Banks says, smiling. “That was the goal.”
Little on the movie calendar has captured the public imagination quite like “Cocaine Bear.” Its trailer, watched more than 25 million times, immediately went viral. The movie, itself, is like a meme sprung to life — a kind of spiritual heir to “Snakes on a Plane” 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. “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 wellknown 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 says. “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 Spider-Verse” and “The Mitchells vs the Machines.” They like to take apart old conventions and give them an absurdist, post-modern spin.
“Certainly, this movie was not mandated by a corporation,” Miller says, 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.’”