Home Movie News ‘Cocaine Bear’ Director Elizabeth Banks Discusses Bringing the Legend to Life

“I had a lot of empathy for [the bear]. I felt like this film could be the bear’s revenge story.”

Elizabeth Banks’ upcoming movie Cocaine Bear took the internet by storm with the release of its first trailer. The fascinating story of a cocaine-induced bear on a rampage for blood and blow, tickles as well as intrigues one at the same time. So it sounds about right that the movie falls in the horror comedy genre. In a new interview with Total Film, Banks discussed doing something “out of the box” with the new feature.

The feature is based on a real-life event that happened in 1985, where a bear ingested a bag full of cocaine and goes on a rampage in a small town. The accompanying image shows a group of people possibly looking for the bear in a cave. Banks tells, “There are a lot of horror tropes that we play with in the film. You know, it’s a bear high on cocaine attacking people! But it’s also a really fun character piece. It’s about a great group of people coming together who are very much in over their heads. Everybody is going after the drugs, and nobody realizes that the bear got there first.”
COLLIDER VIDEO OF THE DAY
Further commending Jimmy Warden’s script, the actor-director said that it gave her an opportunity to do something out of the box, stating, “[Jimmy Warden’s script] was so unique, and I thought it really offered an opportunity for me to play on a genre that I hadn’t really considered before, and do something out of the box”. She revealed that after reading the script, “I did a deep dive. I thought this bear was collateral damage [in] a broken war on drugs. I had a lot of empathy for it. I felt like this film could be the bear’s revenge story.” The director was inspired by America’s crack epidemic and its war on drugs in the 80s. “Then the other thing is about nature itself. We, as humans, with our hubris, feel that we can control nature. [But] if you fu** with nature, nature will fu** with you,” She says of the theme of the movie.

Image via Universal

RELATED: ‘Cocaine Bear’ and the Dangers of the Wannabe Cult Classic

Cocaine Bear casts Keri Russell as Colette Matthews, Brooklynn Prince as Colette’s daughter, O’Shea Jackson Jr. as Howard, Christian Convery-Jennings as Henry, Alden Ehrenreich as Marty, Isiah Whitlock Jr. as Bob, Matthew Rhys as Andrew C. Thornton II, and Aaron Holliday as Stache. Further, rounding off the cast are actors Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Kristofer Hivju, Hannah Hoekstra, Margo Martindale, and late Ray Liotta. The movie is produced by Banks, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Aditya Sood, Max Handelman, and Brian Duffield.

Cocaine Bear is set to release in theaters on February 24. You can check out Total Film’s new image below: