Elizabeth Banks has set up her next directorial feature at Universal Pictures. Appropriately called Cocaine Bear, the movie is described as a bear-centric thriller inspired by the true story of a black bear that overdosed on cocaine in the 1980s. Phil Lord and Chris Miller will produce the project alongside Lord Miller president Aditya Sood, Brian Duffield, Max Handelman, and Banks. Matt Reilly and Christine Sun will oversee the production on behalf of Universal.

Cocaine Bear is based on an untitled spec written by Jimmy Warden. It is inspired by true events that took place in Kentucky in 1985, when a 175-pound black bear had consumed the contents of a duffle bag dropped from a drug smuggler's airplane containing around 70 pounds of cocaine. In that case, the bear was later found dead of an overdose without harming anyone, but as Cocaine Bear is a thriller, that may not be the case in the movie. Exact plot details are being kept under wraps at this time.

"CAN CONFIRM....that [Elizabeth Banks] is a dynamo and [Jimmy Warden] wrote a great one!" producer Phil Lord wrote on Twitter.

Meanwhile, Banks retweeted a post from producer Brian Duffield about how the project started compared to how it's going now.

Elizabeth Banks is very well known for her work as an actress, appearing in The Hunger Games and the Pitch Perfect franchises, among many other movies. She has since stepped behind the camera to try her hand as a director, making her feature debut in 2015 by helming Pitch Perfect 2. She has also served as a producer on the Pitch Perfect movies and the Madalyn Murray O'Hair biopic The Most Hated Woman in America.

Banks' last stint behind the camera was for the Charlie's Angels reboot in 2019. In addition to writing, directing, and producing the movie, Banks also appeared in a main role as Bosley. The reboot cast also introduced Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, and Ella Balinska as the new Angels. Though the movie was met with mixed reviews and underperformed at the box office, Banks made it clear that she was proud of Charlie's Angels regardless.

"Well, if you're going to have a flop, make sure your name is on it at least 4x," Banks wrote on Twitter at the time. "I'm proud of #CharliesAngels and happy it's in the world."

The idea of drug-fueled wild animals aggressively attacking people is not unheard of. In 2019, Tennessee police warned residents not to flush heavy drugs such as methamphetamine as this could create hyper-aggressive "meth gators." That same year, an Alabama man was accused of feeding meth to an "attack squirrel" in his apartment which was found when authorities arrested him for unrelated felony charges. There was no safe way to test the squirrel, but the animal was reportedly aggressive and had bitten people.

Word is Cocaine Bear will start shooting sometime this summer. A release date hasn't yet been announced. This news comes to us from The Hollywood Reporter.