Cocaine Bear Clip Breaks Down the Difference From a Regular Bear That Isn't Coked Out

By Russ Burlingame

What's the difference between the title star of Cocaine Bear and...well, every other bear? The answer should be pretty obvious but, leaning into the absurdity of the movie's premise, producers have shared a clip that breaks it down for you. In the context of the movie, the cocaine turns the bear into basically a super-bear, allowing it to scale trees and track down victims way faster and more effectively than he could in a normal situation. The movie is loosely based on a true story, which a drug smuggler dumped a duffel bag of cocaine out of his plane because the plane was too heavy. Thornton intended to recover the bag himself, jumping out of the plane with a parachute, but in a bizarre twist of fate, the parachute was faulty, and Thornton died. Three months later, a 175-pound black bear was found dead in Georgia, alongisde 40 opened plastic containers of cocaine. 

As you can imagine, the tale of the "cocaine bear" became popular lore in the region, and the animal itself was taxidermied and is still displayed at the Kentucky for Kentucky Fun Mall in Lexington, Kentucky, where you can also buy "Cokey the Bear" t-shirts, hats, and Christmas ornaments, among other things.

The movie, of course, is taking quite a few liberties, turning a sad and strange but ultimately fairly low-key situation into a bombastic thriller-comedy.

You can see the clip below.

Inspired by the 1985 true story of a drug runner's plane crash, missing cocaine, and the black bear that ate it, this wild thriller finds an oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists and teens converging in a Georgia forest where a 500- pound apex predator has ingested a staggering amount of cocaine and gone on a coke-fueled rampage for more blow...and blood.

Cocaine Bear stars Keri Russell (The Americans), Emmy winner Margo Martindale (The Americans), Emmy winner Ray Liotta (The Many Saints of Newark), Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story), O'Shea Jackson Jr. (Straight Outta Compton), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family), Kristofer Hivju (Game of Thrones), Kahyun Kim (American Gods), Christian Convery (Sweet Tooth), Brooklynn Prince (The Florida Project) and newcomer Scott Seiss.

Directed by Elizabeth Banks (Charlie's Angels, Pitch Perfect 2) from a screenplay by Jimmy Warden (The Babysitter: Killer Queen), Cocaine Bear is produced by Oscar® winners Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, The Mitchells vs. The Machines) and Aditya Sood (The Martian) for Lord Miller, by Elizabeth Banks and Max Handelman (Pitch Perfect franchise) for Brownstone Productions, and by Brian Duffield (Spontaneous). Robin Fisichella (Ma) will executive produce. 

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