AsCocaine Bearfrantically heads towards its opening weekend, one of its cast members, comedian and actor Scott Seiss, put out a video with what is arguably the best type of marketing this strange piece of slasher cinema could get, propping up the brilliance that lies beneath the movie’s simplicity.
Cocaine Bearwas announced in 2021 withElizabeth Banks as director, yet it wasn’t until the first trailer came out that this comedyhorrormovie started going viral due to its outlandish but true premise. As promoted, the movie plays on a fictionalized take of “Pablo Eskobear’s” story, a real-life American black bear that accidentally consumed a substantial cocaine shipment in 1985. Despite not going on the murderous rampageCocaine Bearportrays, the real bear still managed to cross state borders from Tennessee to Georgia before being found dead.
RELATED:Cocaine Bear: What Was The Real-Life Event That Inspired The Movie?
With that in mind, Seiss, who plays a paramedic named Tom in the movie, posted a clip that quickly went viral on all social media platforms. Users on TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram gave him over 250,000 likes and 12 million views for his quick explainer, saying moviegoers only need to know two words before going to see the film: “Cocaine” and “Bear.” As a confessed Marvel fan, Seissmakes fun of the MCU, saying there’s no need to watch theEternalsfor any obscure references. Punchlines like that and his perfect delivery are enough to get anyone to go want to seeCocaine Bear.
No one will be deceived by Seiss' Nicole Kidman quote about the movie, and it might not turn out to be quite the Citizen Kane of comedy horror. However,Cocaine Bearleft a good impression on those who’ve seen it already. Cocaine was produced on a $35 million budget, perhaps a bit high for the genre, though it shouldn’t face too much of an uphill climb to make a profit according to early box office forecasts,especially afterM3GAN’s success.
Funnily enough, the first wave ofCocaine Bearreviews primarily describe it as precisely what one would expect from such a ludicrous idea. Review aggregators like Rotten Tomatoes currently display scores of 71% and 81% from critics and users, respectively, so Pablo Eskobear appears to be off to a good start. One significant advantageCocaine Bearhas going for it is that the movie will face little competition at the box office this weekend, withAnt-Man and The Wasp: Quantumaniaprojected to see a substantial drop in earningsbeforeCreed 3premieres next week.
