The People vs. Warner Brothers vs. ‘Coyote vs. Acme’

While it looks like Warner Bros. dropped an anvil on yet another finished film, there may be hope yet for the live-action/animation hybrid Coyote vs. Acme.

Warner Bros. said last week it would take a tax writeoff and would not release the completed film, which stars John Cena and Will Forte and is loosely based on a 1990 New Yorker short story about Wile E. Coyote suing the Acme corporation after several of its traps backfire in his attempts to catch Roadrunner.

They completed the $70 million film in 2022 and slated it for a July 21, 2023 release before Warner Bros. moved Barbie to that date and scheduled Coyote for a streaming debut on Max sometime in the future.

Instead, Warner Bros. will take an estimated $30 million writedown on the film. And that’s for a movie that David Zaslav-appointed DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn produced, so you know they want that money.

“With the re-launch of Warner Bros. Pictures Animation in June, the studio has shifted its global strategy to focus on theatrical releases,” a Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group spokesperson said in a statement. “With this new direction, we have made the difficult decision not to move forward with ‘Coyote vs. Acme.’ We have tremendous respect for the filmmakers, casts and crew and are grateful for their contributions to the film.”

This is not the first time Warner Bros. has shelved a completed film for a tax writeoff. The studio did the same to DC film Batgirl and Scooby-Doo sequel Scoob! Holiday Haunt last year. Both of those movies, as well as Coyote vs. Acme, were greenlit by former WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar. They all had scheduled streaming debuts on HBO Max (now just Max). That all changed when Zaslav took over as CEO after the Warner Bros. Discovery merger, and said he wanted to shift the company’s priorities back to theatrical releases.

All of this news last week led to one of the swiftest Film Twitter roastings I’ve seen in a while. Pretty much everyone was in agreement that shelving an already-finished film just for the tax benefits was stupid, with many calling Zaslav “anti-art.”People online who said they saw the film compared it to Looney Tunes Back in Action and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Coyote vs. Acme’s director Dave Green tweeted he was “beyond devastated by WB’s decision” and said that the movie had tested well with audiences.

pic.twitter.com/MoUX7xqwr1

— Dave Green (@dgreenmachine) November 9, 2023

 

The film’s composer Steven Price even tweeted out part of the score.

Had a lot of fun scoring Coyote Vs Acme. As no-one will be able to hear it now, due to bizarre anti-art studio financial shenanigans I will never understand, here is a bit of behind the scenes footage of our “Meep Meep” Roadrunner choir, with apologies to Tchaikovsky… pic.twitter.com/HL7h00rXpp

— Steven Price (@SteveBPrice) November 10, 2023

 

And crew members shared videos of behind-the-scenes footage of stunts, before X took down video was because of copyright infringement.

Meep meep

All of that online bullying may have worked. Late Sunday night, Matthew Beloni wrote in his subscriber-only newsletter in Puck that Warner Bros. will let the Coyote vs. Acme filmmakers shop the film to other distributors, possibly for a theatrical release.

Granted, this is all attributed to “a good source tells me,” but it could be a promising turn of events. Every decision Zaslav has made since taking over Warner Bros. would suggest he is indeed anti-art, but I do think he realizes the brand value in Looney Tunes. At the very east, this story should shed more light on the incredulity of Hollywood accounting.

So, hopefully, that’s not all, folks.