Cocaine Bear Is Riddled With '80s Easter Eggs With A Special Nod To Back To The Future

Now that the Marvel craze of "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" is dying down, it's almost time for the true king of the box office to take over: "Cocaine Bear." The sure-to-be cinematic masterpiece takes inspiration from the insane true story from the '80s involving a bear ingesting massive amounts of cocaine after smugglers threw the drugs from their plane.

While there are plenty of animal attack movies to hold audiences over until "Cocaine Bear" releases, it promises an experience unlike anything else, putting a darkly comedic spin on the real-life story. Director Elizabeth Banks also brought together an ensemble cast of survivors taking on the drug-filled black bear, including Keri Russell, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Alden Ehrenreich, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and Ray Liotta.

On the surface, "Cocaine Bear" looks to be one of the year's most entertaining movies, delivering a high-octane comedy while tackling some serious themes about family and the war on drugs. However, there can't be a movie set in the '80s without references to that era of filmmaking, which delivered some of cinema's most iconic films. Banks made it a priority for "Cocaine Bear" to honor those that came before, sprinkling '80s Easter eggs throughout the movie.

During an interview with Collider, "Cocaine Bear" director Elizabeth Banks touched on the many '80s Easter eggs featured in the film. When asked about the "Back to the Future" reference that "Cocaine Bear" makes with a joke about Pines Mall, Banks said that's just the tip of the iceberg.

"We have those kinds of nods all over, little Easter eggs throughout the movie," she told the outlet. "For instance, when you meet Deedee in her bedroom, there's a poster of Madonna. I was a 12-year-old girl in 1985, so I very much related with Deedee. She basically had my room. I had that Papasan chair that everybody had with the afghan blanket that your grandma knitted for you. But more importantly, she's obsessed with Madonna, which I was also. There's a poster of Madonna on her wall wearing black overalls and a white t-shirt and the rubber bracelets, and then Brooklynn [Prince] wears that outfit throughout the movie. So it's little things like that, you know?"

While the movie takes plenty of creative liberties as it dramatizes the real-life story, it's clear that Banks didn't neglect the '80s setting. While not a direct '80s reference, Banks also mentioned that the film's opening song, "Jane," pays homage to "Wet Hot American Summer."

Although "Cocaine Bear" will offer audiences a lot of fun at the movie theater, not all of its '80s references will be just fun and games. In a separate interview with Total Film, Banks commented on how the setting allowed them to show another perspective on the war on drugs, saying the bear was an example of the collateral damage of the failed programs.