John Cena says he made his peace with the possibility that COYOTE VS. ACME might never see the inside of a movie theater, and nearly three years after Warner Bros. Discovery shelved the finished Looney Tunes movie, his outlook on Hollywood hasn’t budged an inch.
“Even if the movie never saw the light of day, the takeaway I have is that, with the things within my control, I got to be there on the ground with people who made me better and people I care about, and I got to do the thing,” Cena told Entertainment Weekly, according to Deadline.
Movieguide® has tracked this movie’s strange road since November 2023, when Warner Bros. quietly wrote off the completed, roughly $70 million production for a tax benefit instead of releasing it. Co-star Will Forte couldn’t make sense of it either, telling fans at the time, “This was the movie they’re not going to release?” and calling the finished product “super funny throughout, visually stunning, sweet, sincere and emotionally resonant in a very earned way.”
The shelving, which also swept up BATGIRL and SCOOB! HOLIDAY HAUNT, drew enough public backlash that Warner Bros. Discovery went looking for a buyer. Ketchup Entertainment struck a deal reportedly worth around $50 million to rescue the movie, with CEO Gareth West saying the company was “thrilled to have made a deal with Warner Bros. Pictures to bring this film to audiences worldwide.”
Cena, who plays a corporate lawyer for the Acme Corporation opposite Forte’s Kevin Avery, told Deadline his professionalism never wavered even when the movie’s future looked bleak.
Related: Stars Fought to Keep COYOTE VS. ACME Alive, and It’s Finally Almost Here
“I am hired by an employer to do a task, and it’s my job to prepare as much as I can, be early, be coachable, be passionate, and be reliable,” he said, adding that what happens to a finished project “is beyond my control, so it doesn’t make me view the business any differently.”
That kind of steadiness is worth noting for families watching Hollywood’s stranger business decisions play out from the outside. Scripture has plenty to say about doing good work regardless of who gets the credit or controls the outcome, and Cena’s version of that idea translates well even outside a wrestling ring or a soundstage. He didn’t need the movie to come out to feel like the work mattered, and that’s a small but genuine lesson in staying faithful to a task instead of the applause attached to it.
COYOTE VS. ACME, directed by Dave Green, finally opens in theaters Aug. 28. In it, Wile E. Coyote sues the Acme Corporation over decades of exploding products, backed by attorney Kevin Avery and a supporting cast that includes Lana Condor, Tone Bell, Martha Kelly and Luis Guzmán alongside Forte and Cena.
Movieguide®’s review says it’s “worth the trip”, praising its themes of “perseverance, purpose and friendship” while cautioning parents about cartoon violence and mild profanity for younger viewers.
Here’s the official trailer for a movie that almost never existed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4tjvbLn8Xs
Questions or comments? Please write to us here.
