'Cocaine Bear' offers mix of dark comedy, action, horror in story based on true events
The new movie, Cocaine Bear, is inspired by true events. Really. Director Elizabeth Banks thinks her latest animated movie is as over the top as the film's title. A bear. Cocaine. It's a cocaine bear. Ever since movie fans first got a glimpse of Cocaine Bear's trailer, it's been watched more than 25 million times, immediately going viral.
Director Elizabeth Banks figured she was on to something with this mixture of action, comedy, and horror. I think it's got a big high concept in the background of like a really interesting character piece that's kind of about like parenting. You know, it's a really special sweet story from 1985, and there just happens to also be a bear that got into a bag of cocaine that was dropped by some drug runners, and nobody realized it. The drug runners, some children, some hikers, a wild mix seems to be in the path of the cocaine bear. But Mama Bear and Papa Bear will be very angry because drugs, especially cocaine, are very, very bad. What if they would never find out? Oh, Henry, we always find out. I think it's like this crazy romp of a movie, but I think the specific qualities Liz brought, you know, Liz loves scary, kind of gory, wacky movies, and she really had an idea of the tone of this, and it worked.
The bear did cocaine. A bear did cocaine. I think that's one of the things that was really exciting about it is it's an original idea. It's a big studio movie, but it's unusual. It's not something you've seen before. So that is part of the thing that was really enticing about being a part of it. It's just something that just lets you have fun.
And that, you know, at its core, movies are supposed to be entertaining. And I feel like, you know, this isn't anything to wrap your mind around too much, man. Just go get the popcorn and let's have some fun. O'Shea's father is, of course, Ice Cube, who's done more than a few action-filled comedies himself. O'Shea said when he told his dad the name of the movie, Cube immediately said, oh, yeah, you have to do that. Cocaine Bear is rated R for bloody violence and gore, drug content and language. It is in theaters on Friday.
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