Coyote vs. ACME started as a joke — a mock legal filing by Ian Frazier in a 1990 New Yorker piece, imagining Wile E. Coyote suing ACME for decades of faulty gadgets. James Gunn pitched a film version to Warner Bros. in 2015; it was greenlit in 2018 and shot in 2022 under director Dave Green, with Will Forte, John Cena, and Lana Condor leading a live-action/animation hybrid cast.
Then came the twist nobody wanted: in November 2023, Warner Bros. Discovery shelved the finished film for a tax write-off, part of CEO David Zaslav's broader retreat from HBO Max originals (the same fate that hit 'Batgirl'). Fan and industry backlash was immediate, and Warner briefly floated selling the film at a steep $75–80 million asking price.
It sat in limbo until March 2025, when Ketchup Entertainment (fresh off releasing 'The Day the Earth Blew Up') bought it for roughly $50 million. The film finally premiered at San Diego Comic-Con on July 25, 2026, complete with an in-character "cease and desist" bit from ACME's fictional lawyers, and hits theaters August 28, 2026.
Early reviews are strong, praising its humor and unexpectedly emotional underdog story, some critics even rank it above both Space Jam films as a Looney Tunes big-screen outing.
PREMISE: After decades of being blown to bits by bombs, demolished by dynamite, mangled by magnets, battered by boulders, trampled by trains, tricked by tunnels, sprung by springs, steamrolled by steamrollers, maligned by misfires, bedeviled by bungees, rattled by rockets, backstabbed by bat suits, rocked by rocket skates, upended by unicycles, quaked by quake pills, rubberized by rogue bands, and hurled headlong off every cliff in the Southwest, Wile E. Coyote (Genius) finally fights back. Teaming up with billboard accident lawyer Kevin Avery (Will Forte), he takes on slick corporate counsel Buddy Crane (John Cena) and ACME, Inc., the profit-obsessed conglomerate behind every one of the Coyote’s chaotic catastrophes.
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