Cocaine Bear – Picture: Universal Pictures
Quickly becoming one of the most anticipated new movie releases of 2023 is Cocaine Bear, directed by Elizabeth Banks. The new movie hits theaters on February 24th but will it come to Netflix? The answer depends on where you live.
The new dark comedy thriller is surprisingly based on real events that occurred in Kentucky in 1985. You’ll see an oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists, and teens converge in a Georgia forest where a bear has ingested a staggering amount of cocaine and gone on a coke-fueled rampage for more blow.
The cast for the movie includes Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Alden Ehrenreich, Ray Liotta, Kristofer Hivju, and Sweet Tooth star, Christian Convery.
When will Cocaine Bear be on Netflix US?
Cocaine Bear will hit Netflix US but it won’t be for several years.
Netflix struck a new deal with Universal in 2021 that sees all the live-action slate arrive on the streaming service after a period of “about 4 years”.
That means you can expect Cocaine Bear to come to Netflix US sometime between 2026-2028 although exact details have yet to be announced.
If you want to watch Cocaine Bear sooner, the so-called “first window” is split between Peacock and Prime Video. As with the animated movies from Universal (via DreamWorks and Illumination), the first window is split with the first several months being tied to Peacock, then flipping over to Prime Video for 10 months and reverting back for the final set of months.
Netflix’s DVD.com service will also carry the movie on DVD and Blu-ray later in 2023.
Pictured: Kristofer Hivju in Cocaine Bear – Universal Pictures
Will Cocaine Bear be on Netflix Outside the United States?
Sadly, we don’t have exact details on Cocaine Bears‘ distribution on Netflix outside the US but looking at previous Universal movies, we can make estimations.
Lots of regions of Netflix will receive Cocaine Bear but the first Netflix region to do so will be Netflix in South Korea which gets access to new Universal Pictures movies around 7 months after their theatrical release. Nope, for example, landed on Netflix in South Korea in February 2023 following its theatrical release in summer 2022.
If that’s the case again here, you can expect Cocaine Bear to be added around September 2023.
Netflix Australia and Belgium also receive the movie around 8-10 months after its theatrical release. That would place Cocaine Bear on Netflix around October-December 2023 time.
Beyond those regions, we haven’t observed many movies post-2022 coming to Netflix. Netflix Canada and the UK used to get Universal movies anywhere between 2-3 years following their initial release but it’s unclear whether that’s continuing.
Will you be checking out Cocaine Bear in theaters or waiting for it to come to Netflix? Let us know in the comments.
