When Universal Pictures released the horror-comedy film “Cocaine Bear” last month, it was just the latest twist in a long, strange tale that began on Sept. 11, 1985, when a man in Gucci loafers with a duffel bag of cocaine strapped to his body fell from the sky and landed with a thud in the driveway of a home in Knoxville, Tennessee.

His name was Andrew Thornton. A former Kentucky police officer turned drug smuggler, he was returning from a coke run to Colombia when he suspected the authorities had spotted his plane. Trying to escape with some of his stash, Thornton died on impact after his parachute failed. But it turned out he wasn’t the only fatality.

Minutes before his fatal plunge, Thornton dropped other parcels of cocaine over northwest Georgia. And it was there, tragically, that a black bear living in the Chattahoochee Forest found it and ate some of it—and promptly died as well, of cardiac arrest.

The bear’s body was discovered three months after Thornton’s. The death-by-cocaine angle was odd enough, for a bear, to merit a 60-word blurb in The New York Times. And the whole saga was eventually recounted in a 1990 book, “The Bluegrass Conspiracy,” by investigative reporter Sally Denton.

By 2015, the story had largely been forgotten. That's when Whit Hiler, a copywriter at Lexington, Kentucky-based agency Cornett, who was known for his offbeat antics, revived the tale along with some friends—setting in motion a series of events that would make Cocaine Bear famous and eventually lead to the movie.

The legend of ‘Pablo Escobear’

Hiler’s version of the Cocaine Bear story emerged from a side hustle he’d launched in 2011 called Kentucky for Kentucky. Part unofficial tourism brand, part Lexington souvenir shop, Kentucky for Kentucky would soon make headlines for its rogue tourism ads and merch, themed “Kentucky Kicks Ass,” a more irreverent take on the Bluegrass State’s virtues than the official tagline, “Unbridled Spirit.”

The merch store in particular, known as the Kentucky Fun Mall, was a focus for Hiler. And in 2015, when he and his friends happened to come into possession of a taxidermied bear, it seemed like a promising mascot for the shop.

Installing the bear prominently in the space, Hiler wanted to introduce it to the Kentucky for Kentucky faithful. So he got a writer friend named Coleman Larkin to pen a lengthy article for the website—weaving a ridiculous tale about how this was actually the bear that died of the cocaine overdose in the Georgia woods back in 1985.

“Meet our new mascot: Cocaine Bear,” the article declared. “The cocaine-eating bear from The Bluegrass Conspiracy is getting wild at the Kentucky for Kentucky Fun Mall!”

Styled as a kind of detective story—though more fantasy than fact—Larkin’s article gave some background on the bear and explained how Kentucky for Kentucky had (ostensibly) gotten its paws on the taxidermied animal. The account of the bear’s demise was particularly fanciful. Saying its stomach was “literally packed to the brim with cocaine” (this wasn’t true), Larkin wrote: “Can you imagine? One minute he’s trying to find enough berries to survive another boring day in the Chattahoochee, the next minute he's ripping fat rails of Colombian disco dust off of tree stumps, water skiing in jeans with Alan Jackson, forcing all the other bears to listen to Huey Lewis and the News before chopping their heads off with an axe.” 

The larger-than-life embellishment of Cocaine Bear had begun.

The story went on to claim that Waylon Jennings, of all people, bought the bear soon after its death and gave it to a Las Vegas hustler named Ron Thompson, before it eventually made its way to a Chinese medicine shop in Reno, Nevada. After the shop owner died, the article said, his widow agreed to send the bear to Kentucky for Kentucky—for free. “All we had to do was pay for shipping,” Larkin wrote.

Almost none of this was true. (Georgia authorities would later confirm that the real cocaine bear, after months of decomposing, was just “bones and a little bit of hide” when it was found, hardly enough to taxidermize.) But that hardly mattered. The story, outlandish and entertaining, hit the front page of Reddit—and Cocaine Bear’s legend, and brand value, quickly began to grow.

Hiler and his friends kept up the ruse that this was the real Cocaine Bear. (To this day, Hiler claims it might be. “It’s one of life’s great mysteries, like Bigfoot,” he told Ad Age last week.) They nicknamed him “Pablo Escobear”—even though the real cocaine bear was female—and more and more people began to stop by the Fun Mall for pictures.

An unhinged Fun Mall promo from 2016, starring Hiler and another ad friend, Griffin VanMeter, shows how the bear truly had become a main attraction.

A cocaine dream derailed

Before long, Hiler, Larkin and VanMeter realized they were sitting on potentially lucrative intellectual property. So, in 2019, they trademarked the “Cocaine Bear” name for entertainment services and merchandising—and began to explore their content options.

They started selling loads of Cocaine Bear items at the Fun Mall and online, including hats, T-shirts (which read “Don’t do drugs, y’all”), puzzles, jewelry, candles, holiday ornaments and snow globes (which they called “blow globes”). They also began developing an animated series centered on the character. Hiler said they talked to Warner Media and HBO Max, and even connected with an animation studio.

There was just one problem. At some point during all of this, screenwriter Jimmy Warden happened upon a photo of Pablo Escobear online—and was fascinated. “I was like, ‘What the fuck is that?’” Warden told Variety recently. “I went down a complete rabbit hole, just clicking and clicking and clicking.”

Warden wrote a script—in his version, perhaps inspired in part by Larkin’s absurd exaggerations, the coked-up bear goes on a violent rampage—and sold it to Universal, with Elizabeth Banks directing. The studio announced the project in March 2021.

Hiler, who said he wasn’t consulted, was left out in the cold. He quickly saw his animated series evaporate. All he had left were the rights to the Cocaine Bear name. He negotiated with Universal, trying to get the best fee possible, but had limited resources to do so and said lawyers’ fees were prohibitively expensive.

“It kind of crushed our dreams. It was a pretty big gut punch at the time,” he said. “As a cash-strapped small business in Kentucky with no connections to Hollywood, there wasn’t much we could do. We tried holding our ground, but in the end our only option was to license the naming rights for less than we feel they’re worth.”

Asked about the influence of Larkin’s story on the movie, Universal told Ad Age in a statement: “Cocaine Bear is inspired by a true story of a bear that ingested cocaine, but the film has no connection to what may or may not have happened to the bear after its death.”

Coke-fueled inspiration

Hiler has since bounced back from the lows of the Univeral snub. The film’s success—it debuted with a rare perfect Rotten Tomatoes score of 100%, has been a box-office smash and was the subject of a lengthy skit with Banks during Sunday’s Oscars telecast—means the value of the Cocaine Bear name, which Hiler still owns, has only grown.

As Kentucky for Kentucky strategizes its next steps, the journey so far has already proven out a few lessons for creative people.

Larkin, a senior copywriter at Cornett these days, says his main takeaway is that when they had the idea for a Cocaine Bear mascot, they didn’t overthink it or workshop it to death. Rather, they committed to it, leaned into the absurdity, and made something that felt real—which fans could believe in and embrace.

“I think that things—whether it’s a piece of art, or an ad, or whatever—carry with them the energy with which they’re made,” Larkin said. “That’s why a $5 card made with love feels like a treasure and a $500,000 ad made by committee feels like trash.” 

He added: “There wasn’t some master plan. We didn’t make any decks. Didn’t ask anyone’s permission. It was just an idea we liked and we thought other people would like it, too, so we made it real. That’s why Cocaine Bear captured the world’s heart. He’s a gift. He’s magic. Any brand that wants the kind of fans that Cocaine Bear has should consider that the next time they’re writing a brief.”

For Hiler, who’s now executive creative director at Cornett, there have been a few lessons—about the creative outlet of a side hustle, and the importance of staying positive in the face of setbacks. But mostly, he says, Cocaine Bear’s success is down to world-building and storytelling—and of course, a great title.

“Cocaine Bear didn’t exist,” he said. “He was just an unidentified bear that ate a Kentucky drug smuggler’s lost payload. We gave him an intoxicating name and an equally captivating personality. The words ‘Cocaine Bear’ have proven their worth. As marketers ourselves, we always knew they were gold. Clearly, a good title goes a long way.” 

What’s next for Cocaine Bear

Hiler said he’s now in “apex predator mode,” looking to expand the Cocaine Bear universe in a big way. This includes doubling down on products by partnering with a licensing company, BIP, to find more partners for Cocaine Bear merch.

“[Universal] put so much advertising dollars into the movie, and there's been so much talk about it, it's really put us into a lot of conversations,” Hiler said.

“We think Cocaine Bear is going to thrive in the novelty space,” added BIP CEO Ari Zebersky. “With products like costumes, collectibles and softlines, the horizon is very bright.”

Universal’s own Cocaine Bear merch has largely been limited to key art on T-shirts and such, though there is a Funko Pop Cocaine Bear on the way. (“Snatching a leg from a hiker wasn’t enough for this blood-covered creature; now, he’s looking to track down his next meal in your Cocaine Bear collection!”)

Hiler said he’s open to working with Universal directly, mentioning Halloween costumes as a possibility.

Finally, the idea for an animated series has also been revived. Hiler and his team are working on a deck to shop around to broadcasters and streamers. “That’s the bright side in this whole journey,” he said. “We’re back in the early stages of it. Coleman’s in on it. We’ve got a really good team working on it.”