Cocaine Bear

The new movie "Cocaine Bear" is a highly fictionalized account of a drug-smuggling drop gone wrong in September 1985. Here's the real story behind the film.

While Thornton’s loved ones guessed that he would have been proud of his infamous end — “He would have loved the concept of the warriors who fall from the sky,” his ex-wife told The Post in 1985 — others didn’t pay much mind to what Thornton might have thought in his final moments. “I hope he got a hell of a high out of that [cocaine].” Warden told The Post that the man ultimately responsible for “Cocaine Bear” is not featured after the first 10 minutes of the new movie. The ring was linked to a larger group called “The Company,” a syndicate running drugs and guns that authorities estimated in 1980 had more than 300 members and $26 million worth of boats and planes. Alonso, Georgia’s chief medical examiner, told reporters the bear was found “in a very badly decomposed state” at Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest, surrounded by several plastic bags that authorities estimated had held about 75 pounds of cocaine. [2015 blog post](https://kyforky.com/blogs/journal/cocaine-bear) that the stuffed bear was once owned by country music star Waylon Jennings before it became a spectacle for shoppers. Three months later, after authorities discovered that a 175-pound bear had died of what the coroner described as a stomach “literally packed to the brim with cocaine,” the animal was given a new name in popular culture: “ When Thornton was found with a broken neck after his parachute did not open, he had on him $4,500 in cash, two pistols, two knives, ropes, food and more than 70 pounds of cocaine, according to police. “Cocaine Bear,” a dark comedy that premieres Friday in theaters nationwide, is a highly fictionalized account, in which the titular 500-pound American black bear eats a duffel bag of cocaine and goes on a killing rampage in Georgia, forcing tourists to band together to survive an apex predator hopped up on coke. 11, 1985, Fred Myers got up to shave at his home in Knoxville when he looked out his window and saw a body tangled up in a parachute. Long before he turned to drug smuggling and made a bear very famous, Thornton lived the high life. But Thornton’s life took a turn after he dropped out of college for a second time in 1966.

If you go down to the woods today, you're in for an old-fashioned gory good time.

The movie has very little to say about the rights and wrongs of the war on drugs (besides sniggering at '80s-tastic " The ending really peters out, but most of all these characters are thinner than a line cut by a particularly stingy drug dealer. And obviously the bear didn't use banknotes to snort the coke, it just ate kilos of the stuff a brick at a time. This search element of the movie would work probably be more involving if it was a chase that required running/fighting/outsmarting of the bear. Banks' zingy direction and writer Jimmy Warden's blackly comic dialogue keep the laughs coming, with the ever-looming threat of a coked-up murderbear giving it that midnight movie frisson. This probably leaves you with a ton of questions: When and where -- and how -- did this happen?

Pusha T has shared a remix of Melle Mel's anti-drug classic "White Lines" for — wait for it — the new movie, 'Cocaine Bear.'

[Cocaine Bear trailers](https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/cocaine-bear-trailer-1234639175/), the film will include some elements of the real story, though mostly, it seems like it’ll be about a coked-up bear terrorizing people in the woods. The cast includes Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Christian Convery, [Alden Ehrenreich](https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/alden-ehrenreich-cocaine-bear-han-solo-oppenheimer-fair-play-marvel-ironheart-spider-man-1234683207/), Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Isiah Whitlock Jr., and Ray Liotta in one of his final film roles. And you better believe the [King of Coke Rap](https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/pusha-t-its-almost-dry-1338994/) not only obliged but did so by remixing Melle Mel’s 1983 anti-drug classic, [“White Lines (Don’t Do It).”](https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-greatest-hip-hop-songs-of-all-time-105784/grandmaster-and-melle-mel-white-lines-dont-dont-do-it-101533/) “You heard the pilot lost the load/We call that dumb and dumber” and “The bear crawls up and under/Cocaine overload/The only fuel to his hunger”). The duffel bag and the coke appeared to be tied to a drug smuggler named Andrew Carter Thornton, who’d been found dead in a driveway in Knoxville, Tennessee, a few months earlier, wearing a parachute and carrying 77 pounds of cocaine. [Cocaine Bear](https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-lists/movies-2023-marvel-barbie-martin-scorsese-oppenheimer-fast-x-the-flash-wonka-1234657776/cocaine-bear-february-24-1234657815/), there’s really only one person you can call to whip up a song for a final PR push: [Pusha T](https://www.rollingstone.com/t/pusha-t/), obviously.

This is one of those. You might've noticed that the trailers for the new movie Cocaine Bear, a meme-addled romp about a grizzly bear eating a brick of coke and ...

Melle Mel, formerly of Grandmaster Flash’s Furious Five, released “White Lines (Don’t Do It)” shortly after the breakup of that group. Music](https://www.stereogum.com/2208896/pusha-t-leaves-g-o-o-d-music-says-kanyes-views-are-nothing-to-tap-dance-around/news/), and his career could now go in any number of directions. You might’ve noticed that the trailers for the new movie Cocaine Bear, a meme-addled romp about a grizzly bear eating a brick of coke and going on a killing spree, heavily feature Melle Mel’s 1983 rap classic “White Lines (Don’t Do It).” Today, the movie is in theaters. “White Lines” went down in history as the anti-drug song that makes you want to do drugs. On “White Lines (Cocaine Bear Remix),” Pusha is in his comfort zone, rapping over a reworked “White Lines” beat and doing the old Will Smith thing where he recaps the movie’s plot: “It’s no storm without thunder, the bear crawls up and under/ Cocaine overload, the only fuel to his hunger.” Check out the Pusha T version and the Melle Mel original below. Its soundtrack features a new version of “White Lines” from Pusha T, the present-day rapper most associated with cocaine.

Pusha T has remixed Melle Mel's classic 'White Lines (Don't Do It)' for the new movie 'Cocaine Bear,' which hit theaters on Friday (February 24).

And RIP Ray Liotta.” “I never knew the human brain can think like this and put it on film. [“White Lines (Don’t Do It)”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwRXI-y6M9o&pp=ygUVbWVsbGUgbWVsIHdoaXRlIGxpbmVz) was released in 1983 on Sugar Hill Records. Ron Artest) was full of praise for the film. “I love this movie!!” he wrote. Thornton II, sharing the same surname as Pusha T (whose government name is Terrence Thornton).

It is an incredible blast, especially if you have the benefit of seeing director Elizabeth Banks' insanely violent comedy/thriller with a packed crowd.

But while the suspense that had carried the film for the first two-thirds of its brisk running time dips as it nears its conclusion, “Cocaine Bear” still emerges as a hell of a high. Much of the joy of “Cocaine Bear” comes from the look of the creature itself, which is surprisingly high-tech for a cheesy, silly movie. (Both kids are great in a throwback way, reminiscent of the kinds of brash, profane characters you’d see in movies like “ [The Bad News Bears](/reviews/the-bad-news-bears-1976)” or “ [The Goonies](/reviews/the-goonies-1985).” The boy’s reaction to discovering one of these illegal bundles is not fear, but rather a cheerful: “Let’s sell drugs together!”) They include a pair of mismatched buddy drug dealers ( [Alden Ehrenreich](/cast-and-crew/alden-ehrenreich) and O’Shea Jackson Jr.); their humorless boss ( [Ray Liotta](/cast-and-crew/ray-liotta) in his final film role, recalling one of his signature performances in “ [Goodfellas](/reviews/great-movie-goodfellas-1991)”); and a police detective from the Kentucky town where the smuggler’s plane eventually crashed (Isiah Whitlock Jr., perfectly deadpan as ever). The few times “Cocaine Bear” injects even a meager amount of sentimentality, the pacing starts to lag. [Jimmy Warden](/cast-and-crew/jimmy-warden) has taken the basic facts—a 175-pound Georgia black bear ingested some cocaine that a drug smuggler dropped from an airplane in 1985—and imagined what might have happened if the bear hadn’t died, but rather sampled the stuff and gotten hooked.

Elizabeth Banks's latest pits a drug-addled bear against a group of morons in an honest no-frills slasher.

[The late great Ray Liotta](https://gamerant.com/the-best-ray-liotta-movies/), to whom the film is dedicated, is on autopilot as a kingpin who refuses to cut his losses. It's about a bear that does cocaine and no more need be said. The most likable thing about Cocaine Bear is still its pitch. Cocaine Bear isn't quite as intelligent as either of those underrated icons, but it's still delivering what it promised. The cast of Cocaine Bear is surprisingly strong, but most of them are stuck in predictable archetypes. The one having the most fun is probably Christian Convery, who [previously starred in Sweet Tooth](https://gamerant.com/netflix-sweet-tooth-series-review/). [a 500lb black bear](https://gamerant.com/best-bears-in-movies/) who consumes a great deal of the titular stimulant. There's no way of knowing what the real Cocaine Bear got up to in its brief binge, but the poor creature was found dead with 75 pounds of the stuff in its stomach. This is the first of his films to be released after his tragic passing, but he has at least four more in production. [Phil Lord and Christopher Miller](https://gamerant.com/phil-lord-chris-miller-afterparty-season-2-spiderman-spiderverse/) who stepped in to produce. What follows is effectively a [slasher film set in](https://gamerant.com/slasher-movie-villains-inspired-real-killers/) a massive park with the knife-wielding killer replaced by an unpredictable apex predator. The only thing anyone needs to know about Cocaine Bear is its title.

Cocaine Bear, the new movie about a bear that does cocaine, is out in theaters today and in a move that should surprise no one but gold star to whoever made ...

You can watch the Cocaine Bear trailer below. It's as much a cover as it is a remix, with the king of coke rap dropping new lines like, "I ain't never been a runner, we ain't never had to wonder / You heard the pilot lost the load, call that dumb and dumber / It's no storm without thunder, the bear crawls up and under / Cocaine overload, the only fuel to his hunger" over the classic beat. Cocaine Bear, the new movie about a bear that does cocaine, is out in theaters today and in a move that should surprise no one but gold star to whoever made this happen, Pusha T has a new song on the album, a remix of Melle Mel's classic "White Lines."

TV editor Ellie Harrison talks about the return of ITV's Unforgotten – sadly sans Nicola Walker – while film editor Adam White has found the perfect Netflix ...

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The greatest joke of this blood-spattered horror-comedy from Elizabeth Banks is that it exists.

That “Cocaine Bear” is cautious about touching on this theme is understandable, maybe even preferable. And the script becomes dutifully sentimental at the end with characters forced to say things like “You’re more than a drug dealer. At one point, Cocaine Bear sniffs a hint of white powder and emerges with renewed strength. Early in the movie there’s a clip of the old “This is your brain on drugs” ad, a reminder that the story takes place against the backdrop of the drug war of the 1980s, a catastrophic policy failure with severe human ramifications that we are still living with. At its best, “Cocaine Bear” has the feel of an inside joke. Inspired by the slasher films of the 1980s, not to mention great horror-comedies from that era like the “Evil Dead” films, Banks grasps the comic potential of the gross-out. Banks doesn’t always dole out the viscera artfully (better to follow a leg with an arm, not another leg) but she commits to the too-muchness necessary for comedy. In fact, “Cocaine Bear” too often feels like a one-joke movie, stretched thin. After a pratfall in a plane leads a smuggler to drop a ton of drugs on the mountains of Georgia, a bear discovers it, snorts it up and turns into a mix of Tony Montana and Jason Voorhees. The plot twists can seem irrelevant, including a betrayal that has the impact of a soft sneeze. While it beats out “M3gan” in levels of gruesomeness, “Cocaine Bear” doesn’t have that film’s mean streak or moments of acid weirdness. Whereas “M3gan” steered clear of too much onscreen violence, angling for a PG-13 rating, “Cocaine Bear” wallows in it.

'Cocaine Bear' director Elizabeth Banks talks about the movie's star-studded cast, the right kind of gore, and defying expectations.

I also feel like with this movie, the audaciousness and boldness of not just the title, but the movie that lives up to the title, is something that creates conversation and people don’t want to miss out on that conversation. Am I going to be able to disappear into this? Am I going to get to work with interesting people? I want to continue to surprise not just the audience, but myself. Am I going to be challenged? You almost have to oversell it with the gore and the blood and the outrageousness of it because it makes it more operatic and more entertaining. That being said, I love laughing and I love funny movies and I would love to see more comedy in the theater. I thought there was a great opportunity here to make people laugh, but to also take them on a a bigger ride where the laughs are just part of it. It’s not a documentary, but I also wanted to acknowledge the reality of a bear attack. I want to go to the theater and have a communal experience. The audience is not expecting her to do as much as she does and to be as bold as she is. But she was down on the ground and she was on the wires.

Pusha T has released his remix of Melle Mel's 1983 classic "White Lines" for the Cocaine Bear soundtrack. Stream it here.

Music label](https://consequence.net/2022/12/pusha-t-good-music-kanye-west/). [It’s Almost Dry](https://consequence.net/2022/04/pusha-t-its-almost-dry-album-review/), which we named our [best album](https://consequence.net/2022/12/top-50-albums-2022-list/9/) of 2022. He also [reignited his beef](https://consequence.net/2022/09/pusha-t-rib-roast/) with McDonald’s and [disavowed](https://consequence.net/2022/11/pusha-t-kanye-west-bigotry/) his close collaborator Kanye West after the latter’s string of [antisemitic comments](https://consequence.net/2022/12/kanye-west-nazi/). [our review](https://consequence.net/2023/02/cocaine-bear-review-elizabeth-banks-keri-russell/) of Cocaine Bear, Senior Staff Writer Clint Worthington described it as “an energetic throwback to devil-may-care creature comedies of yore like Tremors or Lake Placid.” The movie stars Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Alden Ehrenreich, the late Ray Liotta, Margo Martindale, and more. [Pusha T](https://consequence.net/artist/pusha-t/) has contributed a new song to the soundtrack for [Cocaine Bear](https://consequence.net/2023/02/cocaine-bear-review-elizabeth-banks-keri-russell/), [Elizabeth Banks](https://consequence.net/tag/elizabeth-banks/)’ new horror-comedy flick based on the true story of — you guessed it — a bear who gets into a lost shipment of over 800 pounds of blow. Instead, the titular animal was substituted with a combination of CGI and a human “bear performer.”

Elizabeth Banks directed the film, which was written by Jimmy Warden. In the story inspired by true events, the people of a small Georgia town must try to ...

Its ticket sales are expected to drop between 55% to 65% and the film should total about $35 million to $40 million in its second weekend. I’d be excited to tell it because there are some really good ideas that we have for the subsequent movies.” Some predictions have it opening with as much as $20 million, thanks to its positive word-of-mouth (or word-of-snout) and memeability online.

Uni/Blumhouse's winter horror hit M3GAN was 94% certified fresh from Rotten Tomatoes critics, 78% with the aggregator site's audiences, a B CinemaScore and 3 1/ ...

Wednesday was $3.8M, but yesterday eased only 3% for $3.7M getting the Peyton Reed-directed sequel to a first week of $135M at 4,345 theaters. Together with Pastor Chuck Smith (Kelsey Grammer), they open the doors of Smith’s languishing church to an unexpected revival of radical and newfound love, leading to what Time magazine called a “Jesus Revolution.” [read the review](https://deadline.com/2023/02/jesus-revolution-review-kelsey-grammer-joel-courtney-religion-hippies-1235267645/)) which already has five stars and 85% definite recommend on PostTrak. [read the review](https://deadline.com/2023/02/magic-mikes-last-dance-review-channing-tatum-salma-hayek-1235252188/)) posted $405K, -3% from Wednesday for a second week of $7.6M and running total of $20.2M at 3,034 venues. Tracking had this Kingdom Story Company movie in the single digits, but it potentially could hit $10M at 2,475 locations. [read the review](https://deadline.com/2022/12/avatar-the-way-of-water-review-james-cameron-sequel-1235196597/)) was around a half-million, +2% for a 10th week of $9.7M at 2,675 and running total of $660.6M. WETA was involved in the CG creation of Cokey the bear, the main protag here. [read the review](https://deadline.com/2023/02/80-for-brady-review-lily-tomlin-jane-fonda-rita-moreno-sally-field-tom-brady-1235246538/)) booked at 3,199 theaters, grossed $409K in fifth place on Thursday for a near $6M third week, $34.6M running total. The pic already has alright exits with 82% from Rotten Tomatoes’ audiences and four stars on ComScore and Screen Engine’s PostTrak and 72% fresh from critics. Uni/Blumhouse’s winter horror hit M3GAN was 94% certified fresh from Rotten Tomatoes critics, 78% with the aggregator site’s audiences, a B CinemaScore and 3 1/2 stars on PostTrak. [read the review](https://deadline.com/2023/02/ant-man-and-the-wasp-quantumania-review-paul-rudd-jonathan-majors-kang-marvel-1235257378/)) got juice from the Presidents Day Monday with $14.2M, discount Tuesday wasn’t so robust, with only $7M this past week. [read the review](https://deadline.com/2023/02/cocaine-bear-review-500-pound-beast-elizabeth-banks-darkly-amusing-horror-comedy-1235269067/)) is inspired by a 1985 true story when cocaine went missing in a Georgia forest after a drug runner’s plane crash, with a black bear gobbling the goods.

Cocaine Bear tells the story of a black bear in Georgia that consumed cocaine after a plane crash.

While piloting a plane carrying a load of cocaine, [Thornton](/topic/thornton)realized that the cargo was too heavy and dropped a duffel bag filled with the drug. The bag of cocaine, worth around fifteen million US dollars, was then found by a black bear, which consumed it and subsequently went on a drug-induced killing spree. [Elizabeth Banks](/topic/elizabeth-banks)is based on a true story, specifically the incident of a black bear in Georgia that ingested cocaine after a plane crash in 1985. Thornton II](/topic/andrew-c-thornton-ii). Therefore, as of now – the only to watch the movie remains limited to theatres. [Martin Luther King Jr.](/topic/martin-luther-king-jr-), others, like the recent comedic spoof Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, take a more flexible approach.

Movie Review: Directed by Elizabeth Banks, 'Cocaine Bear' is a loosely based-on-fact account of a bear that eats a mountain of cocaine and then goes on a ...

VHS is a thing of the past, and so is the late show and maybe even the whole concept of discovering things. They have to fail first and then get reclaimed by us through random discovery, preferably by popping in a dusty VHS cassette out of curiosity or turning on the late show. The mid-’80s was the height of Spielbergian kids’ adventures, but it was also the height of a particularly baggy and brutal period of slasher flicks, and Cocaine Bear carries whiffs of both. We’re here for the bear and the cocaine, and the film doesn’t skimp on that front either. appear to have set out to make a cult movie on purpose. Like the characters, it wanders around a bit too aimlessly, but by the end you feel like you’ve actually been somewhere. Sometimes the bear sneaks up on our characters like a grim woodland menace. By doing in one of the bigger names in the cast with their opening scene, Banks and writer Jimmy Warden slyly place us in a state of uncertainty over who will make it intact and who will not. Or the two low-level hoodlums, Daveed (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) and Eddie (Alden Ehrenreich), sent off by their boss (Ray Liotta) to retrieve the missing cocaine from Chattahoochee National Forest in Georgia? Then he buckles in his parachute, puts on his sunglasses, kisses off the empty cockpit, and promptly hits his head and drops lifelessly into the clouds. It also takes a few cues from its time period, not just in the vintage anti-drug PSAs that open the picture but in pace and style. Elizabeth Banks’s action-comedy-thriller is loosely based on a 1985 incident when an American black bear ingested a massive amount of cocaine and was found dead soon thereafter.

Pusha T shares “White Lines (Cocaine Bear Remix),” taken from new movie Cocaine Bear.

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The movie seems destined for internet infamy but doesn't live up to the promise of its viral trailer.

The stage is set, then, for a cast of wacky characters to descend on Blood Mountain to retrieve the gear. Following the incident, the bear was stuffed and displayed in the wonderfully named Kentucky Fun Mall in Lexington. In the heat of the maulings, the film shifts from comic to disturbing: Intestines are exposed; heads roll. The story goes that a police officer-turned-drug smuggler hurled several duffle bags of cocaine from a plane and then met his own demise while trying to parachute from the craft himself. The film just doesn’t land right, and you can’t help but feel that it was manufactured just to be chopped up for a viral YouTube trailer. And [who wouldn’t want to see](https://twitter.com/SamuelAAdams/status/1628378464431620096?s=20) a bear on a drug-fueled rampage?