The stars of Universal’s unofficial new-era monsterverse are facing off for Best Villain at the MTV Movie & TV Awards on May 7, giving this generation the next best thing to its very own “Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.”
“M3GAN” came out in January and became 2023’s first bona fide success. The campy sci-fi slasher about a bereaved young girl’s high-tech doll becoming a killer robot scored $177 million against a $12-million budget. Universal followed the sleeper hit with February’s “Cocaine Bear,” in which a zany cast of characters must survive a 500-pound black bear that’s ingested a missing stash of narcotics. It earned the studio an additional $87 million but fell short of expectations. What will Cokey’s response to M3G’s upstaging of her be?
See Will ‘Black Panther’ or ‘Scream’ become just the 4th franchise to win multiple MTV Movie and TV Awards for Best Movie?...
“M3GAN” came out in January and became 2023’s first bona fide success. The campy sci-fi slasher about a bereaved young girl’s high-tech doll becoming a killer robot scored $177 million against a $12-million budget. Universal followed the sleeper hit with February’s “Cocaine Bear,” in which a zany cast of characters must survive a 500-pound black bear that’s ingested a missing stash of narcotics. It earned the studio an additional $87 million but fell short of expectations. What will Cokey’s response to M3G’s upstaging of her be?
See Will ‘Black Panther’ or ‘Scream’ become just the 4th franchise to win multiple MTV Movie and TV Awards for Best Movie?...
- 4/27/2023
- by Ronald Meyer
- Gold Derby
While “Avatar: The Way of Water” solidifies itself as the Best Visual Effects frontrunner at this year’s Academy Awards, we can at least pretend until “Dune: Part Two” opens in roughly 10 months that the 2024 race is still any film’s to lose. If the VFX branch’s past admiration for photorealistic animals is any sign, Elizabeth Banks’ “Cocaine Bear” stands a good chance of taking part in next year’s conversation. Universal just released the horror comedy to a $22 million opening weekend and generally positive reviews.
Garnering particular praise is the CGI/mo-cap wonder Banks and her crew came to endearingly call “Cokey the Bear.” Christy Lemire (RogerEbert.com) writes that a great deal of the film’s draw is “the look of the creature itself, which is surprisingly high-tech for a cheesy, silly movie.” Dan Bayer (AwardsWatch) similarly highlights the movie’s visual veracity, saying, “It’s clear...
Garnering particular praise is the CGI/mo-cap wonder Banks and her crew came to endearingly call “Cokey the Bear.” Christy Lemire (RogerEbert.com) writes that a great deal of the film’s draw is “the look of the creature itself, which is surprisingly high-tech for a cheesy, silly movie.” Dan Bayer (AwardsWatch) similarly highlights the movie’s visual veracity, saying, “It’s clear...
- 2/28/2023
- by Ronald Meyer
- Gold Derby
Spoiler Alert: This story contains spoilers for “Cocaine Bear.”
How challenging was it to create a CGI bear high on cocaine? Where do you even begin? Those were the questions Weta VFX supervisor Robin Hollander and the team faced when “Cocaine Bear” director Elizabeth Banks approached the company to create “Cokie,” the star of her latest film.
“[Banks] said, ‘If it’s not photo-real, the whole thing falls apart, and the film is a horror-comedy. So, we can’t straddle either realm too much,'” Hollander says.
The film is based on the true story of convicted drug smuggler Andrew Thornton, who died after a parachuting accident. The working theory is that Thornton was traveling in a plane with 880 pounds of cocaine and thought the feds were trailing him, so he decided to throw some of the stash out of the plane and take some with him when he parachuted out.
How challenging was it to create a CGI bear high on cocaine? Where do you even begin? Those were the questions Weta VFX supervisor Robin Hollander and the team faced when “Cocaine Bear” director Elizabeth Banks approached the company to create “Cokie,” the star of her latest film.
“[Banks] said, ‘If it’s not photo-real, the whole thing falls apart, and the film is a horror-comedy. So, we can’t straddle either realm too much,'” Hollander says.
The film is based on the true story of convicted drug smuggler Andrew Thornton, who died after a parachuting accident. The working theory is that Thornton was traveling in a plane with 880 pounds of cocaine and thought the feds were trailing him, so he decided to throw some of the stash out of the plane and take some with him when he parachuted out.
- 2/28/2023
- by Jazz Tangcay
- Variety Film + TV
The performer behind the titular bear in Cocaine Bear has revealed what research went into playing the drug-fuelled animal.
The newly-released film, which is based on a true story, follows a black bear in Chattahoochee National Forest, Georgia, that goes on a rampage after consuming vast quantities of lost cocaine.
New Zealand actor Allan Henry – who has played orcs in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit films and intelligent apes in Planet of the Apes – took on the role of “Cokie the Bear” as he was affectionately known on set.
In an interview with /Film, Henry spoke about his process for transforming into a 500-pound black bear.
“The challenge was trying to move as close as I could to how a bear would move, the pace that a bear would take, the way that a bear would breathe and explore the environment around them,” Henry said.
In order to prepare, the...
The newly-released film, which is based on a true story, follows a black bear in Chattahoochee National Forest, Georgia, that goes on a rampage after consuming vast quantities of lost cocaine.
New Zealand actor Allan Henry – who has played orcs in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit films and intelligent apes in Planet of the Apes – took on the role of “Cokie the Bear” as he was affectionately known on set.
In an interview with /Film, Henry spoke about his process for transforming into a 500-pound black bear.
“The challenge was trying to move as close as I could to how a bear would move, the pace that a bear would take, the way that a bear would breathe and explore the environment around them,” Henry said.
In order to prepare, the...
- 2/28/2023
- by Tom Murray
- The Independent - Film
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.”
“On films like the ‘Apes’ trilogy or ‘Godzilla vs. Kong,’ there’s...
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.”
“On films like the ‘Apes’ trilogy or ‘Godzilla vs. Kong,’ there’s...
- 2/27/2023
- by Zack Sharf
- Variety Film + TV
There were two things that director Elizabeth Banks insisted on when it came to animating Cokie, the CG star of the black comedy, “Cocaine Bear.” First, she can’t be an inherent killing machine, despite her coke-fueled rampage for more blow and blood. Two, she had to look photoreal — or the movie falls apart.
But that wasn’t a problem for the wizards of Wētā FX, who know their way around creature animation, and are on the verge of winning the VFX Oscar for “Avatar: The Way of Water.”
“The initial brief from Liz on that first call was that the subtlety had to come through,” Wētā’s VFX supervisor Robin Hollander told IndieWire. “Here’s a story of a mother protecting her cubs, and she’s just fallen victim to the war on drugs, if you will. She’s not inherently bad. But there’s no point in doing...
But that wasn’t a problem for the wizards of Wētā FX, who know their way around creature animation, and are on the verge of winning the VFX Oscar for “Avatar: The Way of Water.”
“The initial brief from Liz on that first call was that the subtlety had to come through,” Wētā’s VFX supervisor Robin Hollander told IndieWire. “Here’s a story of a mother protecting her cubs, and she’s just fallen victim to the war on drugs, if you will. She’s not inherently bad. But there’s no point in doing...
- 2/27/2023
- by Bill Desowitz
- Indiewire
If you've seen anything about "Cocaine Bear," then you've been introduced to Cokey, the titular ursine entity that stumbles across a brick of cocaine in the woods and promptly goes on a killing spree in search of one more fix. As producers Lord and Miller told me in my interview with them, not only did no real-life bears do cocaine on set, but no real-life bears were involved at all. Cokey is a creation of Wētā FX, and while her distinct look comes from the artists there, she was also represented on set by motion capture performer Allan Henry, a veteran of movies like "Avengers: Endgame," "Jungle Book," and the "Planet of the Apes" trilogy.
I sought an interview with Henry after seeing the film and talking with Lord and Miller as well as Keri Russell about what they witnessed on the set. "He's on stilts on his arms, doing...
I sought an interview with Henry after seeing the film and talking with Lord and Miller as well as Keri Russell about what they witnessed on the set. "He's on stilts on his arms, doing...
- 2/24/2023
- by Vanessa Armstrong
- Slash Film
A bear on cocaine? Terrifying. Only slightly less so? A buff New Zealander covered head-to-toe in black lycra, running around on all fours thanks to custom-made, meter-long aluminum limb extensions to portray a bear on cocaine. But that’s what actor Allan Henry had to do in “Cocaine Bear” to give his fellow performers — playing the humans caught in the crossfire when a bear snorts a bunch of abandoned cocaine — something tangible to react to.
Henry has augmented his work as a stunt performer and actor by embodying creature roles for a decade. “I started working with the movement coach for [the ‘Hobbit’ films] Terry Notary, who’s incredible, and the second unit for ‘The Hobbit’ was also being directed by Andy Serkis. So at the same time when we were doing orcs and goblins and things [that moved as] quadrupeds for ‘The Hobbit,’ Terry and Andy and a group of us would then...
Henry has augmented his work as a stunt performer and actor by embodying creature roles for a decade. “I started working with the movement coach for [the ‘Hobbit’ films] Terry Notary, who’s incredible, and the second unit for ‘The Hobbit’ was also being directed by Andy Serkis. So at the same time when we were doing orcs and goblins and things [that moved as] quadrupeds for ‘The Hobbit,’ Terry and Andy and a group of us would then...
- 2/24/2023
- by Sarah Shachat
- Indiewire
Cocaine Bear, hitting theaters Feb. 24 from Universal, doesn’t mark Hollywood’s first fascination with bears, although it might be the only project about the animal’s rampage after ingesting a massive amount of the titular drug.
Taking a more naturalistic approach was 1988’s The Bear, which told the story of an adult bear befriending an orphaned cub as they flee human hunters. Director Jean-Jacques Annaud, who won the foreign-language Oscar for 1976’s Black and White in Color, adapted James Oliver Curwood’s 1916 novel The Grizzly King for the film. Annaud considered 50 bears as the adult grizzly, eventually casting a 1,500-pound Kodiak named Bart the Bear, later seen in White Fang (1991), Legends of the Fall (1994) and The Edge (1997). Cinematographer Philippe Rousselot recalls the challenges of using real animals — the two bears could rarely be filmed together.
“The big one would have killed the small one,” he tells THR. “Bart was wonderfully well trained,...
Taking a more naturalistic approach was 1988’s The Bear, which told the story of an adult bear befriending an orphaned cub as they flee human hunters. Director Jean-Jacques Annaud, who won the foreign-language Oscar for 1976’s Black and White in Color, adapted James Oliver Curwood’s 1916 novel The Grizzly King for the film. Annaud considered 50 bears as the adult grizzly, eventually casting a 1,500-pound Kodiak named Bart the Bear, later seen in White Fang (1991), Legends of the Fall (1994) and The Edge (1997). Cinematographer Philippe Rousselot recalls the challenges of using real animals — the two bears could rarely be filmed together.
“The big one would have killed the small one,” he tells THR. “Bart was wonderfully well trained,...
- 2/24/2023
- by Ryan Gajewski
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The title says it all. Just like Snakes on a Plane was about just that, the new horror comedy Cocaine Bear is about a 500-pound bear on a jihad after coming upon a ton of cocaine dropped into rural Georgia on a drug run gone wrong. The bear ingests the coke, and soon you have a beast roaring out of control and devouring whatever human comes onto his path. It is all not to be taken seriously, but fortunately director Elizabeth Banks is smart enough to give audiences hungry for a Jaws in the wilderness some nice scares mixed in with the laughs plus a bit more bang for their buck than just a marketable title.
With a game ensemble playing none-too-bright potential meals, the intelligence level of many on display makes The Dukes of Hazzard look like Schindler’s List. I was rooting for the bear,...
With a game ensemble playing none-too-bright potential meals, the intelligence level of many on display makes The Dukes of Hazzard look like Schindler’s List. I was rooting for the bear,...
- 2/23/2023
- by Pete Hammond
- Deadline Film + TV
“When it says Cocaine Bear on the cover, you’ve at least got to read the first page,” confirmed producer Phil Lord of getting the script for his and Chris Miller’s latest project. The Universal film, directed by Elizabeth Banks, follows, quite literally, a black bear that consumes a significant amount of cocaine that is dropped in a forest, launching a murderous rampage against cops, criminals, tourists and teens.
Written by Jimmy Warden, it was inspired by the true story of a bear that overdosed on cocaine dropped by drug smugglers in 1985, and yes, Cocaine Bear was always going to be the title.
“We were sure there was going to be pushback on it, but it turns out that Universal is cool,” Miller joked at the film’s Tuesday night L.A. premiere. “And we were careful, we didn’t announce the title right away. It was ‘Untitled Bear Comedy’ for a while,...
Written by Jimmy Warden, it was inspired by the true story of a bear that overdosed on cocaine dropped by drug smugglers in 1985, and yes, Cocaine Bear was always going to be the title.
“We were sure there was going to be pushback on it, but it turns out that Universal is cool,” Miller joked at the film’s Tuesday night L.A. premiere. “And we were careful, we didn’t announce the title right away. It was ‘Untitled Bear Comedy’ for a while,...
- 2/22/2023
- by Kirsten Chuba
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
There are a surprising number of terrifying bears in cinema history, but Elizabeth Banks thinks that the bear in her upcoming film "Cocaine Bear" could defeat them all. The bear featured in "Cocaine Bear," affectionately called "Cokey," is a masterwork of CGI animation technology and a motion-rigged performance from Allan Henry, but if he were a real bear, Banks thinks he could even take on the bear in Alejandro González Iñárritu's 2015 survival thriller "The Revenant." "The Revenant" bear almost makes a meal out of Leonardo DiCaprio, but it was also a computer-generated bit of wizardry, and it wasn't on cocaine, so maybe she has a point.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Banks served as a one-person hype squad for the digital bear, explaining that he was based on real bears as much as possible and is basically the ultimate killer movie bear. Watch out, bear from "The Edge...
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Banks served as a one-person hype squad for the digital bear, explaining that he was based on real bears as much as possible and is basically the ultimate killer movie bear. Watch out, bear from "The Edge...
- 12/16/2022
- by Danielle Ryan
- Slash Film
When just the poster (see lower down the page) for your movie has the internet buzzing, you know you might have something different on your paws… er… hands. So it was with the first image of Elizabeth Banks' Cocaine Bear, which had people talking earlier in the week. The trailer for the comedy horror thriller is set to do the same, and you can see it now…
Using a real incident where a drug runner in the 1980s dropped a stash of cocaine in the Chattahoochee National Forest in north Georgia - which was then found by a black bear, who gobbled it all up – as a springboard, the movie tells an imagined story of what might have happened in the following 24 hours.
You can find more on the real story right here, but the film itself promises to be a wild adventure featuring the likes of Keri Russell, Alden Ehrenreich,...
Using a real incident where a drug runner in the 1980s dropped a stash of cocaine in the Chattahoochee National Forest in north Georgia - which was then found by a black bear, who gobbled it all up – as a springboard, the movie tells an imagined story of what might have happened in the following 24 hours.
You can find more on the real story right here, but the film itself promises to be a wild adventure featuring the likes of Keri Russell, Alden Ehrenreich,...
- 11/30/2022
- by James White
- Empire - Movies
Here's How Much Research And Craft Went Into Creating The Cocaine Bear Of Cocaine Bear (Aka 'Cokey')
"Cocaine Bear" is one wild name with an equally wild premise to back it up. After all, it's literally about a bear that manages to consume a ton of illegally-imported cocaine and goes on a wild rampage. If you thought the title was metaphorical, then you'd be gravely mistaken.
However, a title and premise like that require a lot more work than one might expect. For starters, filming with a real bear has the potential to cause a ton of problems from a logistical and safety perspective. First of all, how can you safely train a real bear to go wild on camera around the cast and crew, and second, how can you recreate that same wildness without the bear actually being high? For these reasons, plus a multitude of others, the bear known both affectionately and unaffectionately as Cokey in "Cocaine Bear" was created from the ground up for the film,...
However, a title and premise like that require a lot more work than one might expect. For starters, filming with a real bear has the potential to cause a ton of problems from a logistical and safety perspective. First of all, how can you safely train a real bear to go wild on camera around the cast and crew, and second, how can you recreate that same wildness without the bear actually being high? For these reasons, plus a multitude of others, the bear known both affectionately and unaffectionately as Cokey in "Cocaine Bear" was created from the ground up for the film,...
- 11/30/2022
- by Erin Brady
- Slash Film
On the premiere episode of the new theatre podcast, 'The Poddest Couple,' BroadwayWorld's Alan Henry and Matt Tamanini argue over the recently announced Rent Live on Fox and the in development big screen adaptation of Wicked. The two put their bickering aside for a while in order to talk to theatrical royalty, Queen Lesli Margherita. In an honest and open interview, Lesli talks about how she developed her love of theatre growing up on a California cattle farm, how she earned her royal title, her love for Groundhog Day and Star Wars, and much much more.
- 10/2/2017
- by The Poddest Couple
- BroadwayWorld.com
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