Accidents happen! Elizabeth Banks tripped on stage at the Oscars as she walked on stage to present the award for Best Visual Effects.
25.02.2023 - 22:49 / etcanada.com
“Cocaine Bear” is barreling into theatres in a big way.
The bonkers horror-comedy from Elizabeth Banks was initially predicted to bring in between $15-$17 million at the box office in its opening weekend, but new projections indicate ticket sales will far exceed that estimate.
According to Variety, the film has so far raked in $8.6 million in its first day of release (as Deadline previously reported, that includes $2 million from its first night of previews on Thursday).
READ MORE: Elizabeth Banks Opens Up About Working With Ray Liotta On ‘Cocaine Bear’ Not Long Before He Died
The film (which is kind of but not really based on a true story) follows the carnage that ensues when a drug smuggler accidentally dumps a hefty shipment of cocaine in the woods, where it’s snorted up by a massive bear who goes on a drug-fuelled rampage of destruction.
As reviews have indicated, the film is even crazier than it sounds, and even its director admits “Cocaine Bear” is pretty out there.
“I’m going to be honest with you, no one knows what to make of it when I tell them about it,” Banks told Variety at the film’s premiere.
READ MORE: Elizabeth Banks On ‘Controversial’ ‘Cocaine Bear’ Scene Of Kids Sampling Drugs: ‘It’s Their Innocence Being Tested’
“My poor mother is the least informed,” she joked. “She’s going to go with my aunts and they’re going to lose their minds.”
Also attending the premiere was star Keri Russell, who revealed she was planning to watch the film alongside her 15-year-old son.
“I’m taking my son and a pack of wild teenagers,” she said. “I’m taking the parents, too. They’re all into it. It’s a weird world we live in.”
Accidents happen! Elizabeth Banks tripped on stage at the Oscars as she walked on stage to present the award for Best Visual Effects.
Scream VI is officially a hit!
Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Half a dozen movies in, and the bloodletting hasn’t eased up — or gotten less popular. “Scream VI,” the latest installment in the long-running horror series, looks to slash its way to new opening weekend heights at the box office. Paramount is releasing the film in 3,670 North American theaters on Friday. Based on early estimates, “Scream VI” is projected to debut to at least $35 million and as much as $40 million over the weekend. As of now, 2000’s “Scream 3” remains the franchise’s top opener with $34 million. Records aside, the newest entry is expected to improve upon the start of last year’s hit “Scream” (not to be confused with 1996’s “Scream”), which scored a solid $30 million debut in January. By bringing back franchise stars Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette — and adding in newcomers Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega and Dylan Minnette — to the quiet town of Woodsboro, 2022’s “Scream” earned positive reviews and ended its box office run with $81 million domestically and $137 million. Not too shabby, considering it cost $25 million and was released amid the omicron COVID surge.
Cocaine Bear” has been getting rave reviews, raking in $8.65 million on its opening night, according to IMDB’s Box Office Mojo — but not everyone is so fond of the movie.Some “woke” viewers complained the new film is “encouraging drug use” and “not suitable for kids.”The movie — which is rated R for for bloody violence and gore, drug content and language throughout — is loosely based on a true story. In 1985, a bear was found dead in the Georgia woods after consuming a drug smuggler’s stash of cocaine that was dropped from a plane. “Cocaine Bear” shows the black bear surviving and becoming an addict willing to kill anyone who gets in her way. It follows an ensemble of locals, tourists, criminals and police offers who come together to try to survive the bear’s drug-fueled frenzy.One controversial scene in the movie shows 12-year-olds doing cocaine, which director Elizabeth Banks previously defended.
EXCLUSIVE: Sugar23 has signed rising star Brooklynn Prince, on the heels of her new film Cocaine Bear‘s opening weekend triumph, with a current worldwide gross of $28M+ at the worldwide box office, against a production budget of roughly $30M.
Zack Sharf Digital News Director The cocaine bear in Elizabeth Banks’ “Cocaine Bear” is an impressive feat of visual effects wizardry, but there was an actual person behind the 500-pound, drug-addicted beast. Meet Allan Henry, the motion capture performer who played the bear on set so that actors such as Keri Russell, Ray Liotta, and Alden Ehrenreich had something real to interact with during scenes. When Liotta fights the bear in the film’s third act, for instance, he was actually facing off with Henry on set. Henry is a motion capture veteran who already has experience playing animals thanks to his work on the “Planet of the Apes” trilogy. But the actor said said in an interview with /Film that “Cocaine Bear” was a different beast because the eponymous animal is not as humanistic as the apes in “Planet of the Apes.”
J. Kim Murphy The box office can be an institution of simple pleasures. Hollywood releases the story of a rampaging bear drugged out of its mind and — what do you know? — the people roll out. “Cocaine Bear” drew a solid $8.6 million opening day gross from 3,534 theaters, a figure that includes $2 million in previews on Thursday. That places the Universal release ahead of projections heading into the weekend, which had the gory comedy pegged at a debut between $15 million and $17 million. But a fun online marketing campaign and a killer premise have given the film a strong position, with a debut north of $21 million now in the cards. That would mark an auspicious kick-off for “Cocaine Bear,” which carries a production budget of $35 million. Reviews have been a bit all over the place; the film carries a 51% approval rating from top critics on review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences are also a bit lukewarm, as the comedy landed a “B-” grade through research firm Cinema Score, though a middling grade is fairly standard for a genre release with a horror slant. But, at the end of the day, “Cocaine Bear” is titled “Cocaine Bear”; the straightforward premise is now a proven winner and audiences can only see the film to believe it.
a briliant binge of comedy horror.” Here’s what you need to know about the movie, which is directed by Elizabeth Banks and stars Keri Russell, Ray Liotta and O’Shea Jackson Jr.It was released on Friday, Feb. 24 by Universal Pictures.Like other Universal, DreamWorks, Illumination, and Focus Films, it will stream exclusively on Peacock within four months of its theatrical debut.
“Cocaine Bear” is barreling into theatres in a big way.
Arguably an early contender for the wildest movie of 2023, Elizabeth Banks‘ “Cocaine Bear” is based on the true story of a 175-pound Black Bear who overdosed on cocaine after ingesting the drug in 1985. While the bear did not kill anyone and died shortly after consuming cocaine, Banks and screenwriter Jimmy Warden fictionalize a story where the bear goes on a killing spree while massively high on cocaine.
slated to open somewhere in the mid-teens, with the possibility of hitting $20 million in ticket sales this weekend. For a comparison, the Christmas action comedy “Violent Night” made $1.1 million in Thursday preview showings to kick off a $13 million opening weekend. Directed by Elizabeth Banks, Jimmy Warden’s stranger-than-fiction screenplay tells the story of Cokey the Bear, a Black bear who in 1985 consumed a large amount of cocaine a drug runner had dropped into a Georgia forest.
Jordan Moreau “Cocaine Bear” is snorting up a solid opening weekend. The R-rated action-comedy earned $2 million in Thursday previews at the domestic box office. It opened in 3,000 North American theaters Thursday night and will expand to 3,534 on Friday. Universal’s bloody, real-life tale about a black bear on a cocaine-fueled rampage is projected to open with $15 million to $17 million this weekend. 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. The mid-budget film cost roughly $35 million, with much of it used on the CGI bear, so a launch in the upper teens would be a good sign.
Stretching the phrase “inspired by true events” to its bare limits, Cocaine Bear (★★★☆☆) takes off from the stranger-than-fiction real-life tale of a Kentucky drug runner who, in 1985, dumped bundles of cocaine from a plane over Georgia, then perished trying to parachute after the drugs, a large, expensive portion of which were found and somehow consumed by a 500-lb. black bear deep in the Georgia woods.Anyone interested in the dead-serious facts of the case can grab a copy of Sally Denton’s comprehensive chronicle The Bluegrass Conspiracy, originally published in 1990.This movie, on the other hand, takes a bold leap off that plane with Thornton’s duffel bags full of brown paper-wrapped bricks of blow, and never looks back.Directed by Pitch Perfect mogul Elizabeth Banks, and scripted by Jimmy Warden, Cocaine Bear leaves no gruesome gag unturned, no outrageous one-liner untold, serving up the sort of anything-goes big-screen comedy that comes along rarely.Mid-rampage, the coke-fueled bear snorts a line off someone’s severed leg.
“A bear did COCAINE!” screams a frazzled Eddie (Alden Ehrenreich), trying to explain a patently absurd concept like a rational person – and exposing the vast capacity for humor that lies between the two. “Cocaine Bear,” a film that really puts the high in high-concept comedy, contains promise and peril in its premise.
director Elizabeth Banks keeps the powder gags fresh throughout, as the mammal maims her way through a Southern forest preserve. The movie about blow never blows.Running time: 95 minutes. Rated R (bloody violence and gore, drug content and language throughout.) In theaters.The hysterical film is based on a true story in the loosest possible sense.
Cocaine Bear is a dark action-comedy film set in a small town in Georgia.READ MOREThe synopsis reads: “After ingesting a duffel bag full of cocaine, a 500 lb American black bear goes on a killing rampage in a small town of Georgia where a group of locals and tourists must join forces to survive the attack.”Directed and co-produced by Elizabeth Banks, Cocaine Bear features an ensemble cast that includes Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Christian Convery, Alden Ehrenreich, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Brooklynn Prince, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Kristofer Hivju, Hannah Hoekstra, Margo Martindale, and Ray Liotta in one of his final performances before his death in 2022.Oh, absolutely. According to the official website, Cocaine Bear is “inspired by the 1985 true story of a drug runner’s plane crash, missing cocaine, and the black bear that ate it.”Dubbed Pablo Eskobear (after “the king of cocaine” Pablo Escobar), the real life bear was a 150lb American black bear who was discovered on a hillside in Fannin County, Georgia next to a duffel bag and 40 half-consumed packs of cocaine.Well, rather than heading out “on a coke-fueled rampage for more blow and blood,” Pablo Eskobear overdosed on cocaine and was found dead on the scene.According to the Washington Post, an autopsy found the bear had around three to four grams of the drug in its blood stream. The narcotics investigators who made the discovery believe the drugs were ditched months earlier by trafficker Andrew Carter Thornton II who had planned to return.However, Thornton died after falling out of a plane in September 1985.
actress Kahyun Kim understood the assignment!The 33-year-old screen star showed up at the film's premiere on Tuesday in rhinestone bear-shaped pasties. The silver-and-black nipple covers saw a smirking bear with what looked like one of its ears gnawed off.
Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor “Cocaine Bear” director Elizabeth Banks is worried about her mother seeing the horror comedy when it opens on Friday. “I’m going to be honest with you, no one knows what to make of it when I tell them about it,” Banks told Variety at the movie’s premiere Tuesday night at Regal LA Live. “My poor mother is the least informed. She’s going to go with my aunts and they’re going to lose their minds. I told her she’s going to be mad. She will laugh and she’s going to love Margo Martindale and Isiah Whitlock Jr. and the dog. Not enough people talk about the dog, Rosette. She’ll love those parts, but she’ll close her eyes for a lot of it.”
Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment Writer When Jimmy Warden was a kid growing up in Chicago, he wound up watching “a lot” of horror movies when he was, he says, “far too young.” “I became used to seeing people get their guts eaten or torn out of their bodies, stuff like that,” he says over Zoom with a wry chuckle. “So that’s where a lot of my taste is right now.” Warden’s sensibility is on robust display in his screenplay for “Cocaine Bear,” the R-rated action-comedy, directed by Elizabeth Banks, that is loosely based on the true story of a black bear who died after ingesting a mountain of cocaine in 1985 from a botched drug smuggling operation. Warden stumbled on the account in the mid-2010s while scrolling through Twitter, “not doing work that I should have been doing,” and instantly realized that “there was something there.”