Most people knew, even before the Cocaine Bear movie came out, that it was based on a true story in 1985 involving a drug dealer, a plane crash, and a bear that got into lots and lots of cocaine. But did the real Cocaine Bear kill anyone?
When Cocaine Bear debuted in theaters on Feb. 24, 2023, people already generally knew what it was going to be. Like Snakes on a Plane, it boldly stated what it was going to be in its title. If you like the idea of a bear high on cocaine on a rampage through a forest, the movie’s 95-minute run time and R rating, along with its title, told you what you needed to know. (Note: Spoiler alerts follow.)
The title character in the movie definitely killed people, sometimes in gruesome, darkly comic ways. Moviegoers could probably assume that the real-life bear inspiring the film did not dive into a moving ambulance to wreak havoc on its pair of EMTs and its hapless patient.
They also might have guessed that the real bear did not maul a couple out on a nature hike, ironically observing how lucky they were to cross paths with such a magnificent creature right before it struck.
What is the real-life story behind ‘Cocaine Bear?’ And did the Cocaine Bear kill anyone?
The movie stems from a 1985 incident in which drug smuggler Andrew Thornton died trying to parachute out of a plane, in a mountainous area on the Georgia side of the state’s border with Tennessee.
Investigators also happened upon the hefty black bear that became the film’s namesake, also identified as dead according to a New York Times retrospective on the initial news coverage.
National Geographic’s retelling of the incident said, “Two months after the smuggler’s death, a Georgia hunter found a dead bear surrounded by the remains of a duffel bag investigators would later deem to be Thornton’s. A medical examiner concluded the 200-pound bear had died of acute cocaine intoxication after ingesting about three to four grams of cocaine.”
“It’s enough to kill anybody,” the investigator told reporters.
Parade’s account noted, “The real-life Cocaine Bear isn’t known to have harmed anyone. The poor guy just ate a really bad snack.”
Several accounts of the bear’s demise, including one in Entertainment Weekly, quoted Gary Garner of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. He said, upon finding the bear’s remains, “There’s nothing left but bones and a big hide.”
So, why did the fictional Cocaine Bear kill people?
In an interview with Vulture, Cocaine Bear writer Jimmy Warden explained why he had the fictional bear go on a drug-fueled killing spree rather than keep to the real-life account. He said:
“A bear dying three minutes into the movie would make for a very short movie. And also a bummer. I thought we could tell the truth of the inciting incident, which is interesting in itself. The actual true story I figured I would leave up to true-crime documentaries and podcasts. The story that intrigued me was how this bear ended up doing all this cocaine, and I left the rest up to my imagination.”
He continues, “The first decision I made was: I want the bear to live. Liz [Banks, the movie’s director,] always talks about the redemptive aspects of this story. At a certain point, you’re rooting for the bear, and we gave it the story that I’m not sure the other people in the movie deserved, but it’s maybe what the bear deserved.”
How did Cocaine Bear do on Rotten Tomatoes? And at the box office?
Perhaps surprisingly, audiences and critics generally liked the story of the bear who found cocaine to be juuuuuuust right. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 66% on the Tomatometer (judging more than 300 different critics’ reviews) and a 71% from audience members.
Rotten Tomatoes shared how diverse critics were in their takes on the movie.
It excerpted Noah Berlatsky of the awesomely-named Everything is Horrible, who remarked, “Elizabeth Banks tosses in all the gratuitous severed legs and dripping blood you could ask for in a horror movie, but it’s not really a horror movie. It’s the kind of deftly-timed physical comedy you don’t see that much on the big screen any more.”
Sean P. Means of The Movie Cricket countered, “Cocaine Bear reaches a point of diminishing returns, where everyone involved—onscreen, behind the camera and in the audience—realizes there’s not as much material here as was needed to fill 90-or-so minutes.”
Why was Cocaine Bear rated R?
In short, because it had to be. As producer Chris Miller told Syfy, “It was never in question, just because of the things that happen in the movie—even in the first act—whether it was going to be an R-rating or a PG-13. You don’t want to see a movie called Cocaine Bear that has to hold back. That seems no fun. We wanted to revel in the naughtiness of the film.”
