“It’s a way to process trauma with a little more fun”: Elizabeth Banks Explains Why Cocaine Bear Has Unhinged Violence After Revealing She Was Heartbroken After Losing Thor: Ragnarok to Taika Waititi

Elizabeth Banks has been doing a lot for Hollywood with what she is bringing to the table. The rekindling of the thrill and animalistic horror that was last found in the Piranha series is now being brought back to the theatres and in a lot more realistic and traumatizing light. Adapted from a true story, Cocaine Bear is already busy giving rise to more spin-offs in a related arc, and all of it would hardly be made feasible if not for the brilliant execution that Banks delivers right off the bat with her film.

Elizabeth Banks Takes the Cake with Cocaine Bear

Cocaine Bear has opened to a wonderful reception and unanimously favorable critical reviews. Although an overcrowded plot in terms of the action-driven, crazed, maniacal adventure that pits man against nature, the 2023 thriller stands out when it comes to originality. The plot of the film is so fantastical in its entirety, that it can only be derived from a true story, or at least based loosely off of one. And Banks uses every weapon in her directorial arsenal to give the story the eccentric run that it deserves.

Also read: “Maybe someday”: Spider-Man Star Elizabeth Banks Wants to Jump Ship To DCU for Catwoman Movie

The film charts the events after a 500-pound bear comes across a massive 40-package shipment of cocaine that crashes into the wilderness of northern Georgia on the way to its destination. Consuming the cargo then turns the apex predator that is already dangerous beyond means into a crazed, coke-ridden, foaming-at-the-mouth hunter that goes on an unparalleled rampage for the next 48 hours.

Director Banks Comments on Her Latest Project

Also read: “I don’t see how that loses”: After Cocaine Bear, Elizabeth Banks Wants to Direct Cocaine Shark, Based on True Events, as Spider-Man Star Laments Losing Thor: Ragnarok to Taika Waititi

It is rare to have a script that is so unhinged in its essence that it almost reaches stratospheric levels of idiocy and improbability. But Cocaine Bear does exactly that: present the director with a vision that, if not for the true events that the film was based on, would have been thought of as a satire or a parody of the drug smuggling trade at best.

So to let such a marvelous project go scot-free when it comes to taking it to even higher levels of ridicule would have been a waste. A bear that ingests cocaine gives Elizabeth Banks, the director, and Jimmy Warden, the scriptwriter, the liberty to go ballistic with the gore and violence that is bound to ensue when an opportunity such as this rises. While talking about the portrayal of gore in her film, the director claims:

“For me, gore is a way to process trauma with a little more fun. If someone were just to pull their fingernail off, I would throw up. The straight-up reality of a trauma is not interesting to me. You almost have to oversell it with the gore and the blood and the outrageousness of it because it makes it more operatic and more entertaining. And that’s the point of the art.”

Also read: “I made it overly violent on purpose”: Cocaine Bear Screenwriter Claims Movie Was Nearly Shut Down After Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Producers’ Insane Demand Despite Potential Backlash

The film takes its inspiration from the real-life events of a 1985 drug smuggling operation that went sideways. If not for the comical hilarity embedded in the story, Cocaine Bear would have soon been a documentary on Netflix with an Escobar-esque narrative. Fortunately for the audience as well as Banks, the success of the film panders to the mass demand for a break from the saturated CBM-dominated franchise, as well as Banks’ own career as a director after the lackluster reception of her 2019 spy-action adventure remake of Charlie’s Angels.

Cocaine Bear is now playing in theatres.

Source: TIME