‘Cocaine Bear’ Director Blasts Hollywood Executives Who Believe Only Men Can Direct Action Movies and ‘Women Don’t Like Math’

Screenshot via Universal Pictures/YouTube

Elizabeth Banks made Cocaine Bear to prove female directors are just as capable as their male counterparts.

The filmmaker spoke with Variety recently about her upcoming film, which includes a bear snorting a large amount of cocaine and the unfortunate people who happen to come across his path — and it’s all based on a true story.

In the interview, Banks claimed Hollywood executives still have apprehensions about women making action movies or films involving a lot of technical aspects, like a cocaine-fueled digital bear.

“I wanted to break down some of the mythology around what kinds of movies women are interested in making. For some bizarre reason, there are still executives in Hollywood who are like, ‘I don’t know if women can do technical stuff.’ There are literally people who are like, ‘Women don’t like math.’ It just persists,” she said.

Banks previously directed films like 2019’s Charlie Angels and starred in films such as Pitch Perfect. For Cocaine Bear, she said she wanted to making something “muscular and masculine.” The flick is loosely pulled from the true story of a bear found dead from a cocaine overdose in Georgia’s Chattahoochee National Forest. The movie just adds some killing, Ray Liotta in one of his final roles, and a few jokes to spice things up.

Banks joked with Variety that the movie may be a “career ender” for her.

“Cocaine Bear is a ginormous risk,” she said. “This could be a career ender for me.”