Warner Bros killed Coyote vs. Acme, but now it's back

Films can be left unfinished or unreleased for a variety of reasons, but it's rare for one to come back from the dead.

This week, Coyote vs. Acme will conclude its long journey to Aussie cinemas, having previously looked deader than a cartoon coyote trapped under a comically over-sized boulder.

So how did this Looney Tunes spin-off finally make it to the big screen, and why is its resurrection such a big deal?

What is Coyote vs. Acme?

The film is the tale of the down-on-his-luck animated carnivore Wile E Coyote, and his legal battle with Acme, whose products have continually failed him in his quest to catch his nemesis, the Road Runner.

The comedy combines its Looney Tunes stars with a flesh-and-blood cast including Will Forte and John Cena in a style reminiscent of the semi-animated film noir classic Who Framed Roger Rabbit?.

The real-world spin on the failures of Wile E Coyote stems from a spoof New Yorker article from 1990 by Ian Frazier, in which he imagines Mr Coyote launching a civil suit against Acme seeking just over $US38 in damages and compensation for "personal injuries, loss of business income, and mental suffering caused as a direct result of the actions and/or gross negligence of said company".

So, what happened to the film?

Dave Green (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows) signed on as director in late 2019, and Coyote vs. Acme's live action scenes began filming in early 2022.

British special effects house DNEG, who also worked on Denis Villeneuve's Dune trilogy, began working on the film's hybrid 2D and 3D animation effects, and the film was all set for a July 21, 2023, release.

The film studio Warner Bros quietly handed that release date off to Barbie instead, and Coyote vs. Acme languished on the shelf.

Then on November 9, 2023, Warner Bros announced that even though the film was finished, it had no plans to ever release it.

Wait, what? Why?

According to a Deadline.com article from the time, Warner Bros execs had decided that rather than shell out another $US40 million ($55.7 million) to promote the $US70 million film, it chose to cut its losses and ditch the film as a $US30 million tax write-off.

What was most perplexing, aside from the fact the movie was scrapped despite already being finished, was that it had been shown at test screenings where audiences had responded positively to it.

It was the third time Warner Bros had done such a thing, having also shelved DC superhero outing Batgirl and the animated Scooby Doo prequel Scoob! Holiday Haunt in August 2022, although both those films were unfinished.

Perhaps most damningly, according to Hollywood industry website The Wrap, the four Warners executives responsible for axing Coyote vs. Acme "hadn't even seen the finished version of the movie", noting the film had been "greenlit by a previous regime".

Burying films made by a studio's former heads is a classic Hollywood move.

Back in 1988, Terry Gilliam's under-rated The Adventures of Baron Munchausen scored glowing reviews and four Oscar nominations but became the biggest box office bomb of all time, purely because the new heads at Columbia Studios buried and under-promoted the film's release as revenge against their predecessors (and Gilliam).

But axing a completed film as a tax write-off was something totally new.

Cue the outrage

The cast and crew of Coyote vs. Acme were blindsided and outraged by the decision to ditch the film. 

Composer Steven Price called the move "bizarre anti-art studio financial shenanigans I will never understand", while another crew member described it to Rolling Stone as "deflating and frustrating".

Other creatives suggested they would think twice about working with Warner Bros, with some reportedly cancelling meetings with the studio.

The internet, as usual, was angry — cue the obligatory hashtags (#ReleaseCoyoteVsAcme and #SaveCoyoteVsAcme).

The outrage was short and sharp, and within four days, Warner Bros had relented somewhat, instead agreeing to let the filmmakers shop the film around to find a new distributor.

A new hope

After several months of Warner Bros rejecting suitors (including Netflix, Paramount and Amazon), there were fears the studio's backflip was a ruse.

The Wrap reported Warner Bros had called the film's producers and suggested they better find a buyer soon (despite Warner being in charge of the price and the rejections).

The implication from The Wrap was that if they didn't make a deal, the studio would "unceremoniously delete (Coyote vs. Acme) … never to be seen again".

But somehow, the filmmakers persevered and the film endured, spurred on by the continuous online burblings, public statements by the cast and crew, and a growing mystique around this "lost" movie.

Finally, on March 31, 2025, Deadline reported that indie distributor Ketchup Entertainment had bought Coyote vs. Acme, with the aim of a 2026 release.

That's all, folks

The saga has proven to be a monumental PR misfire for Warner Bros, and better publicity for the movie than money could buy.

While far from a runaway blockbuster, its already made more money than Warner Bros intended to recoup from its tax write-off manoeuvre.

The film has taken $US65 million worldwide, including close to $50 million in the US, and is yet to rollout in many countries.

Ahead of its US opening, critic aggregator Rotten Tomatoes has the film at a remarkable 96 per cent "Fresh" rating from 264 reviews (for comparison, Toy Story 5 is 93 per cent "Fresh" from about 320 reviews).

Australian audiences will get their opportunity to see what all the fuss is about this week.

But in the end, it seems Wile E Coyote has finally achieved something he never could in the old Looney Tunes cartoons — had a win.

And perhaps the film has an extra resonance now, as a result of its struggles.

As the film's editor Carsten Kurpanek put it, maybe Warner Bros weren't worried about the film bombing, but rather its message.

"#CoyoteVsAcme is about a giant corporation choosing stock over empathy, doing nothing 'illegal' but morally shady stuff for profit," Kurpanek tweeted.

"It's a David vs Goliath story … about the cynical and casual cruelness of capitalism and corporate greed.