Universal’s comedy-horror Cocaine Bear has made a bear-sized splash at the box office on its opening weekend.
Horror and comedy fans alike could barely wait to see the flick, which is all about a black bear that overindulges on booger sugar and embarks on a drug-fuelled murderous rampage.
Cocaine Bear made an impressive $US28 million in its opening weekend, rivalling Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which added just $US32.2 million to its profits.
The movie’s A-list cast is definitely appealing, with Keri Russell (The Americans), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family) and the late Ray Liotta (Goodfellas) all starring alongside the drugged-up bear.
But further adding to Cocaine Bear’s intrigue is the fact that it’s heavily inspired by real-life events.
Movie buffs poured into cinemas to see Cocaine Bear, nicknamed ‘Pablo Escobear’. Photo: Universal Pictures
Did it really happen?
The comedy-horror has a bizarre premise.
In the words of the film’s IMDB description, Cocaine Bear is about “an oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists and teens” that cross paths when a “huge black bear goes on a murderous rampage after unintentionally ingesting cocaine”.
Bizarre? Yes. Made up? Well, partially.
The film begins with a flash of text, which explains that Cocaine Bear is actually based on true events. It’s a fusion of fact and fiction.
Fact: An American black bear did consume an enormous amount of cocaine.
Fiction: The murderous rampage that followed.
Here’s how it all really went down. In September 1985, a convicted drug smuggler called Andrew Thornton died in a parachuting accident, and the discovery of his body sparked a major investigation.
The theory is that Thornton, a former narcotics officer and lawyer, was passing over northern Georgia in a plane carrying nearly 400 kilograms of cocaine.
But after getting a hunch that authorities were following him, Thornton ditched the aircraft, and threw some of the cocaine out of the plane, before strapping some to his body and jumping out of the plane.
Authorities believe that Thornton’s parachute failed to deploy due to the huge amount of cocaine strapped to his body – $US15 million worth, to be exact.
His body was found in a driveway in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Authorities then searched in case more drugs had been dropped elsewhere in the failed mission.
High on the supply
Authorities eventually found a huge supply of cocaine deep in the Chattahoochee National Forest – but a black bear had beaten them to it.
They were shocked to find a 79-kilogram black bear had partaken of Thornton’s enormous cocaine stash, and had died of an apparent overdose.
According to The New York Times, the bear was found alongside “40 opened plastic containers with traces of cocaine” – estimated to be worth $US20 million at the time.
They estimated that the bear had been dead for about four weeks before its body was found.
Georgia’s chief medical examiner, curious about the circumstances around the bear’s death, decided to perform an autopsy on the bear’s remains.
They found that the bear had three or four grams of cocaine in its bloodstream – although it could have consumed more before it died.
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‘Revenge story’
Though the real-life bear met a grizzly demise, Cocaine Bear is somewhat of a reimagining of the bear’s overindulgence.
Screenwriter Jimmy Warden described the movie as his “twisted fantasy” of the bear’s bender.
In an interview with Variety, he called Cocaine Bear the “twisted fantasy of what I wish actually happened after the bear did all that cocaine”.
Director Elizabeth Banks (Pitch Perfect, The Hunger Games) echoed his sentiments, saying she actually had a “deep sympathy” for the real bear.
“I really felt like this is so f—ed up that this bear got dragged into this drug run gone bad and ends up dead,” she said.
“I felt like this movie could be that bear’s revenge story.”
As for the film’s characters, they’re all entirely fictional – except for Andrew Thornton.
And for dramatic effect, the filmmakers supersized the bear, affectionately nicknamed ‘Pablo Escobear’, bulking it up from 79 kilos to 227 kilos.
And to give the bear some merit, she, yes, she, is a mother to two cubs who are also heavily intoxicated.
Universal recruited Peter Jackson’s visual effects company, Weta FX, to create the film’s star – taking up the bulk of the $US35 million budget.
Pablo Escobear already boasts legions of fans – among them the late Liotta, who gave his final performance in the film.
Banks says Liotta gave the special effects his tick of approval, just eight days before his death when he came in to record dialogue during post-production.
“We had a great hug and he was really proud of the movie. He laughed at what it had become,” Banks told USA Today.
“That’s how I’m remembering Ray: I’m picturing him holding me in a hug.”
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