- A new horror comedy called “Cocaine Bear” will hit theaters on February 24, 2023.
- The story follows a vicious black bear on a bloody rampage while, yes, high on cocaine.
- But oddly enough, it was inspired by an actual 175-pound bear on a multi-million dollar high.
The trailer for Elizabeth Banks’ new movie, “Cocaine Bear,” starring Keri Russell and Ray Liotta, who died in May, it launched last Wednesday and garnered almost 4 million views in less than a week.
The title of the upcoming horror comedy doesn’t leave much to the imagination for the movie’s plot: It’s about a bear going on a violent rampage while high on cocaine. Although bizarre, the story was inspired by the true story of an actual 175-pound black bear in Georgia who ingested cocaine dropped by a known drug dealer in the 1980s.
In September 1985, investigators found the body of Andrew Thornton, a convicted drug dealer and former police officer, in the backyard of a home in Knoxville, Tennessee, with a parachute, Gucci loafers, and 77 pounds of cocaine strapped to his waist. . The Knoxville News Sentinel reported. Agents believe Thornton was aboard a drug flight from Colombia and dropped the shipment in the woods, intending to pick it up later, according to the washington post.
Authorities conducted a search for the rest of Thornton’s supply, suspecting he had a larger shipment given his history of drug smuggling, according to The News Sentinel. They thought he threw it away from the small plane before bailing out because it was carrying too heavy a load, said Gary Garner, who worked for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The Associated Press at the time.
While the trailer for “Cocaine Bear” briefly mentions the drop of airborne cocaine in Knoxville, Banks and film writer James Warden took some creative liberties with the original story, namely on the creature’s gory rampage. drugged.
In reality, investigators found an empty duffel bag believed to contain cocaine along with the remains of a bear that apparently died from a multimillion-dollar surge in December 1985. Investigators said the bear had been dead for about four weeks prior. of being found in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Georgia.
Forty packages of cocaine — some 88 pounds in all and worth as much as $20 million — had been torn up and scattered on the nearby hillside in Fannin County, about 80 miles north of Atlanta, the AP reported.
“The bear got there before us, and he opened the duffel bag, got him some cocaine, and he overdosed,” Garner said. “There is nothing left but bones and a great skin.”
The black bear that ingested the cocaine died of an apparent overdose after absorbing three to four grams of cocaine into its bloodstream, though it could have eaten more, said Dr. Kenneth Alonso, the state’s chief medical examiner. The ap at the time.
“The question is: what happened to that duffel bag?” Alonso said. “The bear does not count towards the full duffel bag.”
Authorities also found two more duffel bags within 100 yards of the bear’s body, the AP reported, containing a total of 218 pounds of cocaine. In early November, investigators found about 75 pounds of the drug in another duffel bag recovered.
“Cocaine Bear” will hit theaters on February 24, 2023, but until then, visitors interested in seeing the infamous antagonist in Lexington, Kentucky, where a Fun Mall retail store has a teddy bear he claims to be the original “Cocaine Bear”, who has been nicknamed “Pablo EskoBear”.
