As Cocaine Bear frantically 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 Bear was announced in 2021 with Elizabeth Banks as director, yet it wasn’t until the first trailer came out that this comedy horror movie 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 rampage Cocaine Bear portrays, the real bear still managed to cross state borders from Tennessee to Georgia before being found dead.
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, Seiss makes fun of the MCU, saying there’s no need to watch the Eternals for any obscure references. Punchlines like that and his perfect delivery are enough to get anyone to go want to see Cocaine 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 Bear left 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 after M3GAN's success.
Funnily enough, the first wave of Cocaine Bear reviews 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 advantage Cocaine Bear has going for it is that the movie will face little competition at the box office this weekend, with Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania projected to see a substantial drop in earnings before Creed 3 premieres next week.
Cocaine Bear is currently available in theaters.
Source: Scott Seiss | Twitter