Cocaine Bear joins Elizabeth Banks on stage at the Oscars

When Elizabeth Banks offered the Oscar for finest visible results on the 95th Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles on Sunday evening, she shared the stage with one among Hollywood’s hottest characters.

Banks, who directed this 12 months’s field workplace smash “Cocaine Bear,” introduced the nominees alongside a co-presenter sporting a full bear costume. Banks’ new thriller, which has earned $65 million globally because it opened simply weeks in the past in theaters, is impressed by the true story of a 175-pound black bear in Georgia 40 years in the past that ingested a large dose of cocaine apparently dropped from a airplane piloted by a convicted drug smuggler.

“I not too long ago directed the movie ‘Cocaine Bear,'” Banks stated on the Oscars. “And with out visible results, that is what the bear would appear to be. It is terrifying.”

“What’re you doing? Cease it,” Banks instructed the costumed bear. “Are you attempting to attain proper now? It’s essential wait ’til the after social gathering like all people else.”

Banks went on to spotlight the significance of visible results in bringing tales to life onscreen.

“The coke just isn’t actual. It is visible results,” she stated earlier than segueing right into a inventive introduction for every of the 12 months’s nominees on this class: “All Quiet on the Western Entrance,” “Prime Gun: Maverick,” “Black Panther: Wakanda Ceaselessly,” “The Batman,” and the eventual winner, “Avatar: The Manner of Water,” 

“‘Avatar’ is visible results. ‘All Quiet on the Western Entrance’? That is visible results. It was an actual warfare, however actual visible results. Batman flying round — that is not actual. Tom Cruise flying round is actual, but in addition, visible results,” she stated of the “Maverick” actor well-known for performing his personal stunts. 

“Wakanda? Wakanda is completely actual,” Banks continued, including, “Visible results can improve any story and are an unbelievable software for a filmmaker like me. With out visible results, ‘Cocaine Bear’ would have been some actor in a bear swimsuit … in all probability on cocaine.”

The award for finest visible results was the primary win of the evening for “Avatar: The Manner of Water,” which was nominated this 12 months in 4 classes, together with finest image.