Cocaine Bear is actually kind of about the War On Drugs, per director Elizabeth Banks
Elizabeth Banks says her new thriller serves as a "revenge story" for her leading bear, aptly nicknamed Cokey
Add it to the list of things that Nancy Reagan wouldn’t approve of were she here today: Elizabeth Banks’ latest film Cocaine Bear. The premise of the project is as simple as the two words that make up its name: there’s a bear, and that bear does copious amounts of cocaine.
Inspired by true events that transpired in Georgia in 1985, Cocaine Bear follows a wild bear—charmingly referred to as “Cokey” on set—that ingests millions of dollars worth of cocaine after a smuggling operation goes off the rails.
“I knew when I read the script that I had the ability to make something truly unique,” Banks tells Entertainment Weekly in a new interview, also sharing that the period of stimulant-induced chaos was a “fun chapter in that bear’s story” to explore.
Sadly, the real-life “cocaine bear” met a more immediate, tragic end than its on-screen double. After finding out that that bear died from an overdose, Banks said she developed a soft spot for the creature and began recognizing some larger societal themes that may have contributed to its dramatic end.
“I felt a lot of sympathy for the bear,” Banks explains to EW. “Like, wow, this bear—which, in real life, ended up dead after eating all this coke—ended up being sort of collateral damage in this War on Drugs. And I just thought, ‘Well, then this movie can be a revenge story for the bear.’”
Per Banks, understanding Cokey through the greater cultural lens of Reagan-era policies gave her “a point of view and a purpose” in making Cocaine Bear. Ultimately, though, the film’s real thesis goes even broader than that.
“There’s a real message here,” Banks elucidates. “We should not fuck with nature, nature will win.”
Cocaine Bear arrives in theaters on February 24, 2023.