When Elizabeth Banks determined to make “Cocaine Bear,” the world round her was — actually and figuratively — on hearth. “I used to be feeling very chaotic once I learn this script,” Banks tells POPSUGAR. “We have been in the midst of the pandemic. We have been nonetheless wiping down groceries. There have been fires all over the place in California. The world was chaos. Then I learn the script and I believed, nicely, there’s nothing extra chaotic than a bear who’s excessive on cocaine.”
“Cocaine Bear” is, certainly, loosely primarily based on a real story a couple of bear who stumbled upon some cocaine. In 1985, a bear in a forest close to Blue Ridge, Georgia was discovered lifeless after ingesting a part of a duffel bag full of the drug — nevertheless, nobody is aware of what occurred within the speedy aftermath of the animal’s unintentional drug binge.
Banks’s dramatization of the occasions includes a wacky solid of characters who encounter the bear throughout its, ahem, altered state. This consists of two uncomfortable little children, their mother, a bunch of knife-wielding teenagers searching for hassle, a park ranger, and the wildlife inspector she’s determined to impress. It additionally encompasses a trio of drug sellers trying to find the misplaced cocaine, which incorporates Alden Ehrenreich because the grieving Eddie, O’Shea Jackson because the disgruntled Daveed, and Ray Liotta — who’s excellently outlandish in his final movie function earlier than his dying — as drug kingpin Syd. From begin to end, the entire thing is extraordinarily gory and completely absurd.
It is smart that “Cocaine Bear” arose from the depths of the hysteria that outlined the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, when everybody was hoarding bathroom paper, tent hospitals have been being created in the midst of soccer fields, and many individuals felt just like the world would possibly fairly actually be coming to an finish. For Banks, who’s remarkably articulate about what drew her to make such an inane movie, the story’s insanity helped her contextualize the state of the world at that time. “I felt that making this film as an artist was kind of my approach of taming that chaos a little bit bit,” Banks provides, “and hopefully bringing an viewers collectively for a communal expertise of connection and pleasure and enjoyable.”
Nearly three years and an entire lot of chaos later, “Cocaine Bear” is lastly out in theaters. In addition to seeing the film as an embodiment of the overall temper of the time, the “Charlie’s Angels” and “Pitch Perfect 2” director says she was drawn to the story as a result of she needed to push herself as a director. In early February, Banks advised Variety that she was afraid the film may very well be a “career-ender,” however the threat appears to have made her wish to pursue it extra. “I do not assume we develop if we do not attain for issues that make us a little bit uncomfortable or that scare us a little bit bit,” she says. “Don’t do one thing you are snug with. I imply, you’ll be able to, however you are not gonna develop as an individual.”
That sentiment appears to be shared by the characters of “Cocaine Bear,” who pursue the enraged animal — and finally her cubs — regardless of the acute hazard. But whereas Banks is not afraid to slip feet-first into doubtlessly precarious conditions like her characters, she additionally sees one other aspect to “Cocaine Bear.” “Don’t go close to animals within the woods. They’re wild and you can not management them,” Banks says. “That is, I believe, the hubris of people, pondering that we are able to management nature.”
For her, “Cocaine Bear” can be a cautionary story, one which reminds us that we will not anticipate to do no matter we wish to nature with out it will definitely combating again — within the type of issues like local weather change and the wildfires that raged when Banks first encountered the “Cocaine Bear” script. “That’s for certain a theme of this film,” Banks says. “Nature is all the time gonna win.”
Check out extra of Banks and her costars O’Shea and Ehrenrich’s ideas on “Cocaine Bear” within the video above.