Liotta, Russell and others join Cocaine Bear

Casting has been announced for the soon-to-shoot Universal project  Cocaine Bear, based on a bizarre 1985 true story. No need for fancy metaphorical or symbolic titles here. Cocaine Bear, set to be directed by Elizabeth Banks and produced by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, may well be a film about a bear on cocaine. The project is set to shoot mid-August in Ireland and now the casting for the film has been announced. The film itself is based on a true story, where, ‘as reported in 1985 by The New York Times, … a 175-pound black bear consumed the contents of a duffle bag filled with more than 70 pounds of cocaine that was dropped from an airplane by a local drug smuggler, Andrew Thornton. The bear was later found dead of an apparent drug overdose.’ With the film soon to shoot, casting has been announced. Keri Russell from The Americans will feature alongside Ray Liotta, Alden Ehrenreich who previously worked with Lord and Miller on Solo: A Star Wars Story. O’Shea Jackson from Straight Outta Compton and Jesse Tyler Ferguson of Modern Family will also appear. If nothing else it’s an interesting premise with a promising cast, plus the influence of Miller and Lord’s subversive presence means there are always other potential layers waiting to be explored. Banks’ previous directing credits are Pitch Perfect 2 and the Charlie’s Angels remake. We’ll keep you posted as we hear more. Dark Horizons — Thank you for visiting! If you’d like to support our attempts to make a non-clickbaity movie website: Follow Film Stories on Twitter here, and on Facebook here. Buy our Film Stories and Film Stories Junior print magazines here. Become a Patron here.