COYOTE VS. ACME hit theaters nationwide on Aug. 28, nearly three years after Warner Bros. shelved the finished movie as a tax write-off, and director Dave Green wants audiences to know it’s not the ensemble Looney Tunes romp they might expect.
“Most of the Looney Tunes movies that’ve been made to this date have been ensemble pictures. COYOTE VS. ACME is very much the Iron Man to the Avengers,” Green told Gizmodo ahead of the movie’s release.
The live-action/animation hybrid follows Wile E. Coyote as he hires down-and-out lawyer Kevin Avery, played by actor Will Forte, to sue Acme Corporation over the faulty products that have blown up in his face for decades of cartoons. Green built the story around Wile E. rather than a crowded cast of Looney Tunes regulars, calling it “a character study of Wile E. Coyote and what his wants, needs, and obstacles are.” He pointed to WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT as a tonal touchstone and cited courtroom dramas like ERIN BROCKOVICH and THE VERDICT as inspiration for building a hero worth rooting for.
That underdog framing carries extra weight given what the movie survived just to reach theaters. Warner Bros. Discovery shelved the completed picture in November 2023, taking a roughly $30 million write-off rather than release it — the same strategy the studio used on BATGIRL. Producer Chris DeFaria said the team never accepted that verdict.
“We wanted to make sure that it was never viewed as a failure, that it wasn’t being shelved because it was a bad movie,” DeFaria told Cartoon Brew.
Public backlash, plus support from filmmakers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, pushed Warner Bros. to reverse course days after the shelving announcement and shop the movie to other buyers. Ketchup Entertainment eventually bought worldwide rights for roughly $50 million in a deal that closed in March 2025, setting up this month’s release. Forte said the wait tested him.
“That’s the only word — just the most extreme form of frustration,” Forte told Consequence, describing his reaction when the movie was first shelved.
He felt differently once the deal finally closed.
“The most exciting thing, because we just thought this day would never come,” Forte said.
Movieguide®’s own review gave COYOTE VS. ACME three out of four stars for entertainment value, praising its themes of perseverance and friendship while cautioning parents about cartoon slapstick violence and light language. Movieguide® has followed the movie’s long road for months, from Forte’s early sadness that audiences might never see it to the cast’s public campaign to keep it alive.
Green said the delay ended up deepening the movie’s meaning rather than diminishing it, since a story about a little guy fighting a corporation that would rather bury a mistake than fix it took on new resonance once that’s exactly what happened to the movie itself. Wile E. Coyote spends the movie proving persistence matters even when the odds, and the system, are stacked against him. Families watching this weekend will find a movie that got to make its own case, and won.
Read Next: COYOTE VS. ACME Star ‘Had Given Up Hope’ of Movie’s Release Until…
Questions or comments? Please write to us here.
