Director Elizabeth Banks reveals the violent scene she cut from Cocaine Bear to stop people 'freaking out'

Elizabeth Banks has opened up about the violent scene she cut from Cocaine Bear to stop viewers freaking out.

The director of arguably one of the best-named movies ever has explained that some scenes were too gruesome to make the final cut.

You can watch the trailer here:

The film is based on the bizarre story of a bear in the US that consumed 70lbs of cocaine back in 1985.

The black comedy thriller is inspired by the unbelievable events that arose in Kentucky - though the premise of the film takes the madness much further.

Still, Hunger Games star Banks did rein it in, to an extent.

REUTERS / Alamy Stock Photo

"I did pull out some gore toward the end," the 49-year-old told Insider.

Specifically, she decided to leave out the death of a hiker, played by Game of Thrones actor Kristofer Hivju.

"We show an amazing prosthetic of his ripped-off face that's the aftermath of an attack with the bear," Banks said. "We also filmed his death, but I took it out.

"I felt by then the point had been made of what's happening.

"I wanted the audience to be a little more on the emotional ride of the third act. It's coming to a close, and I wanted people to leave happy and not be freaking out and wanting to throw up."

Fair enough, I suppose.

Moviestore Collection Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

The movie stars Keri Russell, Margo Martindale, Alden Ehrenreich, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Kahyun Kim, Christian Convery, Brooklynn Prince and the late Ray Liotta, in one of his last roles before his death in May.

The synopsis reads: "Inspired by the 1985 true story of a drug runner's plane crash, missing cocaine, and the black bear that ate it, this wild dark comedy finds an oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists and teens converging in a Georgia forest where a 500-pound apex predator has ingested a staggering amount of cocaine and gone on a fuelled rampage for more blow … and blood."

In case it isn't clear, the predator ingesting a staggering amount of cocaine is the part that is true - the fuelled rampage for more blow is the flight of fancy.

The bear which inspired this movie was found by investigators back in 1985, lying next to a duffel bag.

The duffel bag had been filled with more than 70 pounds (weight, not price) of the Class A drug before it was thrown from drug smuggler Andrew Thornton's plane.

But when the contraband - which was worth around $15 million (£10.7m) - was finally found, all that remained was 40 empty packets scattered around the animal.

A medical examiner, who looked inside the bear, said: "Its stomach was literally packed to the brim with cocaine. There isn't a mammal on the planet that could survive that."

So there was no rampaging for that bear, I'm afraid.

Topics: Film and TV, Drugs

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey