Crazy Bear: The amazing true story that inspired the craziest movie of the moment

What is it about? The film is based on a thought-provoking story: in 1985, a shipment of cocaine that disappeared after a plane crash was actually swallowed by a brown bear. Crazy Bear is a black comedy about a misfit group of cops, criminals, tourists, and teenagers who find themselves in the heart of a deep Georgia forest, right where a 200+ pound super carnivore roams, enraged and bloodthirsty, completely insane. By taking a staggering dose of cocaine.

crazy (and absurd!)

Andrew Carter Thornton II, a mercenary cocaine-trafficking boss nicknamed “Cocaine Cow”, flies his wares south of the US border and dumps them in the desert a little further east (so he can better recover the cargo himself. Accomplices).

But on September 11, 1985, things did not go as planned. The trafficker is convinced that the feds will spot him when he enters American space. So he decides to throw 3 backpacks of 30 kilograms of cocaine out of the plane.

He then switches to autopilot before parachuting. But Andrew makes the mistake of loading himself with various bags (of weapons, drugs, etc.), which prevent him from opening the parachute. It crashed on the outskirts of Knoxville, Tennessee.

Andrew Carter Thornton II is not the only victim of this catastrophic theft. Four months later, we find the dead body of a brown bear weighing 100 kilograms… The poor animal swallowed almost the entire contents of one of the backpacks that the trafficker threw at it.

As a result of the animal’s autopsy, it turns out that cerebral hemorrhage, hyperthermia, respiratory arrest and heart attack occurred, and the kidneys stopped working. His stomach is also completely full of cocaine (15 kilos)…

The birth of the script

After discovering the story while surfing the Internet, screenwriter Jimmy Worden realized he was more interested in what happened to this coke-drunk bear than the infamous Thornton’s nefarious activities. He found an unfortunately succinct commentary explaining that the animal should have died in less than 5 minutes, but those 5 minutes had made it the most ferocious predator ever to appear on the planet…

Crazy Bear takes these elements of Thornton’s story and takes place after these generally unknown events in France. Jimmy Warden (along with Elizabeth Banks and producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller) turned the whole thing into a completely twisted horror comedy in which the animal kills people it meets (police, criminals, etc.). All were invented for the needs of the film (except Andrew Thornton, played by Matthew Rhys).

Ray Liotta Gangster

Ray Liotta, who died in May 2022, plays Sid, a small-time St. Louis drug kingpin who sets up his dates at a local fast-food joint. The actor is used to the role of different types of gangsters, as his performances in (among others) Goodfellas, Revolver, Cogan or Many Saints of Newark show. Crazy Bear is one of his last films.

Elizabeth Banks has conquered!

Having grown up with the films of the late 1970s and 1980s, Elizabeth Banks immediately recognized the potential of Crazy Bear and the respect for the era that the film could transcribe. But above all, he was excited by the idea of ​​making a gory and entertaining feature film. The director explains: “As a viewer, as well as someone who has always dreamed of becoming a director, I have always loved films that combine horror and comedy. To me, they are two sides of the same coin.”

Pushing the audience to shake them up like a roller coaster, making them jump, laugh and scream at the same time is the best thing that can happen to you as a director. I definitely saw an opportunity to make a good comedy. With moments of pure laughter, it’s all underpinned by genuine suspense and sprinkled with tons of gore. A chance to have a good time and enjoy this huge story of a giant bear that is drugged and ready to devour people.”

Design Bear…

The biggest challenge was the design of the famous bear. The use of an animal on the set was out of the question, so it had to be made. Elizabeth Banks decided to entrust this mission to WETA, the famous special effects company created by Peter Jackson. The director also chose a realistic bear. After reviewing dozens of different species in the Ursidae family, he settled on female sun bears.

The sun bear is omnivorous in nature, loves trees, is an excellent climber, has a massive build and a sunlit blue coat, all muscle, with curved legs, wide sharp claws and a short muzzle. This muzzle is the main means of hunting, but it limits the animal’s sense of smell, which therefore interferes with its ability to distinguish between what is natural and what is not, food and what is not, for example … a packet of cocaine, for example.

At the last Oscar ceremony, Elizabeth Banks and a bear (or rather, an actor wearing an unreal bear costume…) came to present the prize for visual effects. The director humorously explained: “This is what a bear would look like without special effects!”.