The trailer of Elizabeth Banks’s Cocaine Bear dropped recently, and it is generating huge buzz. The trailer has garnered immense interest from the public. Cocaine Bear was on top Twitter trends. The trailer posted on Youtube has garnered nearly 4 million views in a span of just 5 days. People are doing amusing comments and putting interesting reviews of the trailer.
Well, the movie, which is slated to release in February 2023, has got the needed publicity. Amidst all this humor and jokes, a particular detail has caught the attention of the viewers. The trailer mentions that the movie is inspired by true events. Wait!! A bear who’s overdosed on cocaine and is out on a rampage. How can this be true? The plot of Cocaine Bear sounds way too fictional to be true.
But here’s the real twist. This unusual incident did happen in 1985 when an American black bear found a huge bag of cocaine and immediately ingested it all. Though the events that occur after the bear ingests cocaine differ from what happened in reality, the story is definitely true to some extent.
Cocaine Bear promises an amusing journey of a bear who might be the first and the only bear to get overdosed with cocaine. Viewers cannot wait for the release of the movie, and the trailer has hit the right spot as the curiosity to know the real story behind the infamous Cocaine Bear has garnered immense interest.
What Is The True Story Behind The Cocaine Bear?
The real events unfolded in 1985. Andrew Thornton was flying a Cessna across a mountainous jungle region. Thornton was an infamous drug smuggler who had been involved in many drug trafficking crimes. Thornton dropped packets of cocaine in the jungles.
Thornton was a former police officer who turned towards drug smuggling. Thornton jumped out of his plane with a parachute, but probably the load was too heavy to carry, and the parachute crashed in Knoxville. On September 11, 1985, the dead body of Thornton was discovered by police. He was carrying weapons and a bag that contained several kilos of cocaine.
When the police searched his body, they found a key in his pocket. This key was similar to the tail number of a crashed Cessna discovered in Clay County. The investigators concluded that it was Thornton who was piloting the small plane, which later crashed. Thornton died due to a faulty parachute.
Is The Cocaine Bear Based On True Story?
The director of Cocaine Bear- Elizabeth Banks
Now perhaps the investigation should have ended with the discovery of Thornton’s body and the 35 kg cocaine found alongside his body. But Thornton was a famous drug smuggler, so the investigators suspected that he must have dropped cocaine elsewhere too. Thus began the search for the remaining cocaine and the investigators managed to find nearly 300 pounds of cocaine in the next few months.
How Was The Cocaine Bear Found?
The exhaustive research led the investigators to the dead body of a black bear. This bear weighing around 150 pounds, was found miles away from Thornton’s body. But the shocking discovery was the 40 bags of cocaine lying beside his corpse. The bags had been shredded badly, and cocaine from the bags had been consumed away.
A still from the trailer
Initially, the investigators could not understand the whole situation, but soon they realized that the bear had consumed the cocaine packets. Thornton must have dropped bags close to the bear. So the poor bear ended up consuming more than 80 pounds of cocaine that was worth millions of dollars.
It took 3 months to get to the body of the bear who would later attain cult status, and now, nearly 40 years after this incident, viewers will be watching an amusing documentary about the cocaine bear.
Did The Cocaine Bear Go On A Rampage In Real?
In this thriller movie, the Cocaine Bear goes on a killing spree. It acts amusingly and is on a rampage, thanks to the huge overdose. But in reality, nothing like that happened. The poor bear died within 5 minutes of cocaine ingestion.
The amount of cocaine that entered his system was the highest for any mammal. The bear had to endure a painful death due to organ failure, cardiac arrest, etc. But fortunately, this lasted for only a few minutes.
The Legacy Of The Cocaine Bear
The taxidermied bear in the Kentucky Fun Mall
