The Chris Miller and Phil Lord-produced thriller Cocaine Bear from director Elizabeth Banks has just filled out much of its cast as Deadline reports that Margo Martindale (Justified), Kristofer Hivju (Game of Thrones), Christian Convoy (Sweet Tooth), Brooklynn Prince (The Florida Project), Kahyun Kim (American Gods) and newcomer Scott Seiss have joined the film.
They join Keri Russell (The Americans), Ray Liotta (The Many Saints of Newark), Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story), O’Shea Jackson Jr. (Godzilla: King of the Monsters) and Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family).
Little is known about Cocaine Bear, even though the title instantly conjures up some unique visuals. We do know however that the script takes its inspiration from true events that took place in Kentucky in 1985 and is based on an untitled spec written by Jimmy Warden. It was also once described as a horror-comedy, but now is labelled as a thriller. Phil Lord and Chris Miller are set to produce.
Seeing brief popularity in 1985, the story of “Cocaine Bear” started when a bear was found dead after eating roughly $15 million worth of coke from a duffle bag dropped from a drug smuggler’s airplane. That smuggler was part of one of the elite Kentucky horse-breeding families and fell to his death when he bailed out of the plane.
The film is described as a “character-driven thriller” inspired by the 1985 events. Banks will direct from a script written by Jimmy Warden (The Babysitter: Killer Queen).
Ricky Church – Follow me on Twitter for more movie news and nerd talk.