Film about Lexington’s famous ‘Cocaine Bear’ has release date. Here’s what we know

A movie about Kentucky’s famous “cocaine bear” will be released in February 2023, according to an Instagram post Monday from director Elizabeth Banks.

According to deadline.com, the movie, aptly titled “Cocaine Bear,” is said to be “a character-driven thriller inspired by true events that took place in Kentucky in 1985.”

The film stars Ray Liotta, Keri Russell and Alden Ehrenreich, according to IMDB.

Liotta, 67, died in May while shooting a new movie in the Dominican Republic, according to the Associated Press.

Cocaine Bear, along with an Apple TV Plus limited series “Black Bird,” were Liotta’s final times behind a camera before his death, Variety reported.

Cocaine Bear was the victim of a fatal overdose that occurred when it ate a cache of cocaine that Andrew Thornton, a former Lexington narcotics officer turned drug smuggler, threw out over northern Georgia.

The bear was preserved with taxidermy and eventually made its way to Kentucky after it was purchased by the operators of Lexington-based retailer Kentucky for Kentucky.

Thornton was carrying $15 million in cocaine when he died parachuting out of a plane over Knoxville in September 1985. That saga is chronicled in Sally Denton’s 1989 book, “The Bluegrass Conspiracy.”

Herald-Leader reporter Karla Ward contributed to this story.