If you grew up watching 1970s reruns of “The Road Runner Show,” you have borne witness to Wile E. Coyote’s decades of enduring Acme’s products — explosions, falling anvils and faulty gadgets and gizmos. In “Coyote vs. Acme,” he finally takes them to court.
Ironically, the film’s central joke became strangely literal before audiences even had the chance to see it.
In November 2023, Warner Bros. abandoned the complete live-action/animation hybrid film in favor of a $30 to 40 million tax write-off, rather than spending additional money marketing and distributing the film. This decision did not delay the film or push it onto streaming platforms; it simply scrapped it and the work of animators, voice actors and the countless other people who worked on the film.
For cast and crew who were previously under the impression that their work would soon be rolled out in theaters across the nation, the news was a shock. A “funeral screening” was held on the Warner Bros. lot for a sendoff, knowing the movie may never be publicly released.
Will Forte — who plays Coyote’s attorney in the film — assumed Warner Bros. had seen something wrong with the film that he and the rest of the cast could not. “It was everything I wished the movie could have been and more,” Forte said to the Associated Press. “It was so special, which made it so frustrating and so devastating.”
The response to the movie being shelved spread beyond its production. Fans rallied for its release online using #ReleaseCoyoteVsAcme, and some even protested in person.
“I would open my phone one day and see someone dressed in a Wile E. Coyote costume outside of the studio protesting with a sign in the rain.” director Dave Green said. Eric Bauza, the voice of multiple Looney Tunes characters, pushed the hashtag publicly and spoke about it at the 2024 Annie Awards (sporting his signature Daffy Duck voice). The campaign was important not just because of the film, but because it was about if a finished creative work could vanish simply because it made financial sense to a corporation.
Eventually Warner Bros. relented and allowed the filmmakers to seek a different distributor. In March 2025, independent distributor Ketchup Entertainment acquired the worldwide rights to the movie for $50 million – and nearly three years after its initial cancellation, Coyote vs. Acme landed in theaters Aug. 28.
The release has not made the film an instant blockbuster, and its financial future remains uncertain against the scale of modern studio releases. Despite this and its journey to theaters, audiences gave the movie an A grade from CinemaScore during its opening weekend, with critics and viewers giving it stellar scores on Rotten Tomatoes. For a film that was initially treated as disposable enough to never see the light of day, that reception means something.
However, “Coyote’s’’ release has not erased the barriers that kept the film from theaters. “Batgirl”, “Scoob! Holiday Haunt” and other completed Warner Bros. projects written off around the same timeframe remain unreleased. Animation workers in today’s world still face an industry riddled with corporate layoffs, consolidation and studios opting for AI as a cheap alternative to human labor. But one rescued movie can represent the rejection of these trends.
The journey of “Coyote vs. Acme” should serve as a reminder that a film’s value cannot be measured only by its potential to become the next billion-dollar franchise. It represents years of work from animators, writers, artists and actors who deserve to have that work seen. The victory here is that audiences can now judge the movie themselves; rather than accepting a studio’s accounting decision as a sentence.
“There will be nothing able to take away that want from creators. As long as we keep creating, there will be a movie business.” Green said.
For once, the Coyote has not fallen off the cliff.