Cocaine Bear snorts up a $23 million box office debut

A star is born, and it is a cocaine-ingesting bear.

Elizabeth Banks' thriller comedy Cocaine Bear surpassed expectations with a $23 million debut at the domestic box office, per Comscore. The movie, based on the strange 1985 true story of a 175-pound black bear that consumed a significant amount of cocaine left in a Georgia forest, sniffed up an additional $5.3 million overseas, bringing the worldwide total to $28 million.

The cast is made up of Keri Russell, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Margo Martindale, Alden Ehrenreich, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and the late Ray Liotta. "I knew when I read the script that I had the ability to make something truly unique," Banks told EW of the film. "I felt a lot of sympathy for the bear."

The director added, "This bear — which, in real life, ended up dead after eating all this coke — ended up being sort of collateral damage in this War on Drugs. And I just thought, well, then this movie can be a revenge story for the bear. It just gave me a point of view and a purpose for making it. There's a real message here: We should not f--- with nature, nature will win."

Cocaine Bear, however, couldn't out-maul Ant-Man 3. It opened at No. 2 while Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania retained the top spot for a second week in a row. The Paul Rudd-led superhero flick actually experienced a sharp decline (~70%) following last week's $104 million debut, earning $32 million on week two. The threequel still retains the top spot at the global box office with $364 million.

Elsewhere, Jon Erwin and Brent McCorkle's Jesus Revolution had a solid $15 million domestic debut at No. 3. The drama starring Jonathan Roumie, Kelsey Grammer, Joel Courtney, and Kimberly Williams-Paisley tells the true story of a national spiritual awakening in the 1970s, stemming from a community of teenage hippies in Southern California. Box office mainstays Avatar: The Way of Water and Puss in Boots: The Lash Wish rounded out the top five with an additional $4.7 million and $4.1 million, respectively.

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