New Oscars Tweet Has Fans Convinced Cocaine Bear Will Make an Appearance

By Jamie Jirak

The 95th Annual Academy Awards are taking place this weekend, and an exciting line-up of presenters was released yesterday. Pedro Pascal, Harrison Ford, and Elizabeth Olsen are just some of the big names who will be appearing onstage at the Oscars, but movie fans are also hoping for some surprises. There have been a lot of jokes online saying the titular character from M3GAN should present at the awards, and now a new tweet from The Academy has folks thinking another 2023 horror icon might be a part of the event. Cocaine Bear was released in theaters last month, and the bear has garnered a lot of new fans. It's unclear exactly how a CGI bear could be a part of cinema's biggest night, but it sure is fun to speculate.

"🐻 #Oscars95," The Academy tweeted with the Cocaine Bear poster. This caused a lot of questions in the comments. "Ummm... is Cocaine Bear presenting?" @DestinyDreadful wondered. "The line is now set at 2.5," producer Phil Lord joked. "COCAINE BEAR CONFIRMED PRESENTER," @aus_mich added. "Cocaine Bear is gonna be at the Oscars?? – Sweet – maybe she could start a new category – Best non-Human performance in a Motion Picture, I always thought that should be a category," @Fairwinds10 suggested. Of course, it is worth noting that Cocaine Bear director Elizabeth Banks is one of the presenters, which means she could be doing some sort of Cocaine Bear bit. You can check out The Academy's post and more comments below: 

Who Is Presenting at The Oscars?

The full list of presenters for the 95th Annual Academy Awards includes Riz Ahmed, Halle Bailey, Antonio Banderas, Elizabeth Banks, Halle Berry, Emily Blunt, Jessica Chastain, John Cho, Glenn Close, Jennifer Connelly, Paul Dano, Ariana DeBose, Cara Delevingne, Harrison Ford, Andrew Garfield, Hugh Grant, Danai Gurira, Salma Hayek Pinault, Kate Hudson, Samuel L. Jackson, Eva Longoria, Dwayne Johnson, Michael B. Jordan, Mindy Kaling, Nicole Kidman, Troy Kotsur, Andie MacDowell, Jonathan Majors, Melissa McCarthy, Janelle Monáe, Elizabeth Olsen, Deepika Padukone, Pedro Pascal, Florence Pugh, Questlove, Zoe Saldaña, John Travolta, Sigourney Weaver, and Donnie Yen. 

What Happened to the Real Cocaine Bear? 

The real "Cokey" ingested an extreme amount of cocaine after a drug runner's plane crashed in 1985. Andrew C. Thornton II was a former narcotics officer and convicted drug smuggler, who dumped a duffel bag of cocaine out of his plane because his plane was too heavy. Thornton intended to recover the bag himself, jumping out of the plane with a parachute, but the parachute was faulty, and Thornton died. Three months later, a 175-pound black bear was found dead in Georgia alongside 40 opened plastic containers of cocaine. The tale became popular in the region, and the animal itself was taxidermied and is still displayed at the Kentucky Fun Mall in Lexington, Kentucky, where you can also buy "Cokey the Bear" merch. Naturally, the movie is taking a lot of liberties. 

I felt a lot of sympathy for the bear," Banks told EW about the real-life Cocaine Bear. "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.' And it just gave me a point of view and a purpose for making it. Like, there's a real message here: 'We should not f*ck with nature, nature will win.'"

Cocaine Bear is still playing in theaters and the 95th Annual Academy Awards are taking place on March 12th. 

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