As Elizabeth Banks’ Cocaine Bear goes head to head with Disney-Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania this weekend, the movie has already picked up its first award! PETA is offering its “Beary Best” Award to the director for using a human “bear performer” along with state of the art CGI instead of real bears for the movie. Banks directed and co-produced the horror comedy about a bear who goes on a cocaine-fueled rampage in the Georgia woods.
The film’s visual effects supervisor is Robin Hollander and the realistic effects were produced by Weta FX and Rising Sun Pictures.
“Cocaine Bear’s hyper-realistic star proves that the future of film lies in technology, not dragging abused animals onto movie sets,” says PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange. “PETA is happy to celebrate Elizabeth Banks for recognizing that forcing a real bear to perform in her dark comedy would have been anything but funny.”
PETA’s undercover investigations and law-enforcement probes into animal suppliers for the film and TV industries have documented that animals are often whipped and kept in deplorable conditions. Bears are separated from their mothers prematurely, causing a lifetime of psychological distress, and handlers typically use cruel techniques such as food deprivation, beatings, electric shocks, and chaining to break their spirits, make them compliant, and force them to perform on cue.
PETA urges anyone who sees animals being used for film or television productions to report it at PETA.org/Report or call the whistleblower hotline at 323-210-2233.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.
