Movies

Trailer Released for ‘Cocaine Bear,' Ray Liotta's Last Film Inspired by True Events

The film is based on true events

Black bear
Getty Images

The official trailer for the stranger-than-fiction movie "Cocaine Bear" was released Wednesday, giving viewers a sneak peak of what is set up to be one of the wildest films of 2023.

Yes, it is a movie about a bear who eats a ton of cocaine, and then goes berserk.

Believe it or not, the film is actually inspired by true events. In 1985, Georgia authorities found a bear who they believed overdosed after eating millions of dollars worth of cocaine that had fallen from a plane. According to an Associated Press story published on Dec. 22, 1985, the cocaine was believed to be the drug dropped from a small plane by a former Kentucky narcotics investigator who fell to his death in Tennessee because he was carrying too heavy a load while parachuting. The bear's remains were found just south of the Tennessee border in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

″The bear got to it before we could, and he tore the duffel bag open, got him some cocaine and OD’d (overdosed),″ Gary Garner, of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, said at the time.

Although it is unclear what the bear in real life did while high on cocaine, the movie adaptation certainly had enough material to run with.

In the trailer for the dark comedy thriller, a black bear goes on a drug-induced killing spree — and in search of more cocaine — after consuming several bricks of blow.

Meanwhile, the drug smuggling team, led by the late "Goodfellas" and "Field of Dreams" actor Ray Liotta, who died earlier this year, is traversing the woods in search of their stash.

The Universal Pictures film marks Elizabeth Banks' directorial debut, and stars Keri Russell, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and O'Shea Jackson Jr.

"Cocaine Bear" will be released in theaters on Feb. 24, 2023.

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