One Cocaine Bear Victim Had A Significantly Gorier Death In The Original Cut
This article contains slight spoilers for "Cocaine Bear"
The Hollywood landscape is dominated by a seemingly endless barrage of superhero movies and retreads of properties from decades long passed. Thankfully, to break up this often nostalgia-fueled monotony, some truly fascinating new ideas slip through the cracks for moviegoers to enjoy. Case in point: "Cocaine Bear" from director Elizabeth Banks, which is every bit as wild as the title implies. Based loosely on a 1985 incident where a hulking black bear ingested copious amounts of cocaine, the feature is a funny, violent moviegoing experience like no other — one that's not for the faint of heart.
When "Cocaine Bear" is described as violent, it's not mere hyperbole. When the movie wants to, it can get every bit as graphic as it gets bizarre. After all, it's about a bear with frightening amounts of cocaine in its system, so it's not too surprising that some of the folks that cross it during its rampage don't make it out of the interaction alive. At the same time, "Cocaine Bear" isn't a wall-to-wall blood and gore-filled watch, but that's not to say that it didn't lean into its more brutal side when it was still making its way down the production pipeline.
For instance, in the initial cut of "Cocaine Bear," one of the characters met a far more grisly demise than the one that ultimately made it to the silver screen. Elizabeth Banks herself has revealed why this change was made.
Olaf's death was initially far more gruesome
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Elizabeth Banks shared a behind-the-scenes secret regarding "Cocaine Bear." According to her, the death of hiker Olaf (Kristofer Hivju) at the hands (or paws, rather) of the titular bear was originally going to play out far more gruesomely than what audiences saw in the final film. "We had some incredible prosthetics of him, they ripped off his whole face, and we had a close-up of it that is no longer in the movie," she shared.
Although, as someone who appreciates gore in movies, Banks teased that perhaps this gnarlier version of Olaf's death could make it into a hypothetical director's cut. Then again, if she's such a fan of gore at the cinema, why did she and the "Cocaine Bear" team revise Olaf's death in the first place? She explained to the publication, "I just felt at that point the audience was on more of an emotional journey, and I didn't want to distract from it."
Perhaps someday fans will get to see Olaf's original death, but until that day comes, all they can really do is cross their fingers that a cut of "Cocaine Bear" including it will come to light.