Hippies to Yuppies: The Hollywood Tale of the Coronado Company

More and more of the curious are flocking to the story of the infamous Coronado drug caper from the 1970s that could be the subject of a film by star George Clooney.

VoiceofSanDiego.org spoke to writer Joshuah Bearman about the drug ring, and name checks the hot AMC series Breaking Bad while doing so. 

Bearman tells Voice the perpetrators were a group of “hippies (who) turned into materialistic yuppies, and that’s the story of the Coronado Company.” 

Such a thing could thrive in Coronado, he said, not only because the community is close knit, so the members were tight, but also because they were talented – they were skilled in engineering and problem-solving, partly due to their associations with the Navy. 

Word of the upcoming magazine piece came out in May when actor, director and producer Clooney bought the rights to the story. Clooney was one of a group of producers who won Academy Awards for bringing another of Bearman's stories to the big screen – Argo.

Bearman told TheAtlanticWire.com that he collected enough detail to write a book about the Coronado Company. His story is a piece of long-form journalism available for purchase via The Atavist or in GQ's September issue.

The Atlantic goes further than Voice though, offering another excerpt from the piece. GQ did so last month.

The implication in the choice selection from the story? More people in Coronado than the perpetrators were aware of what was going on: 

“It was risky, bringing more people into the operation, but it was Coronado, and everyone knew each other. ‘If we take care of them,’ Lance said, ‘they’ll take care of us.’”