After decades of being blasted by dynamite, crushed by boulders, flattened by steamrollers, launched from cliffs and betrayed by an endless supply of malfunctioning gadgets, Wile E. Coyote has finally decided he has had enough.
In Coyote vs. Acme, the famously unlucky Looney Tunes character takes his grievances to court, arguing that the ACME Corporation should be held responsible for the countless defective products that have contributed to his spectacular failures.
Wile E. teams up with struggling personal-injury lawyer Kevin Avery, played by Will Forte, to sue the giant corporation. Standing in their way is ACME’s formidable legal team, including John Cena’s corporate attorney Buddy Crane.
The premise transforms one of the oldest running jokes in Looney Tunes history — ACME products inevitably blowing up in Wile E. Coyote’s face — into a courtroom comedy about an underdog challenging a powerful corporation.
But the movie’s journey to theatres became almost as improbable as Wile E. Coyote finally catching the Road Runner.
A movie that almost disappeared
Directed by Dave Green and inspired by Ian Frazier’s satirical New Yorker piece about Wile E. Coyote suing ACME, the live-action/animation hybrid was completed at a reported production cost of about $70 million.
Despite reportedly receiving positive test-screening results, Warner Bros. Discovery announced in November 2023 that it would shelve the completed film rather than release it, with the company seeking a roughly $30-million tax write-off.
The decision triggered significant backlash in Hollywood, particularly because audiences were not simply being denied a proposed project — the movie had already been made.
Its cancellation became part of a larger controversy surrounding Warner Bros. Discovery’s decision to shelve completed or nearly completed projects, including Batgirl and Scoob! Holiday Haunt. Filmmakers, animation fans and members of the entertainment industry criticized the idea that finished creative work could effectively disappear because of corporate financial decisions.
The controversy was particularly striking because Coyote vs. Acme was reportedly testing well before it was shelved. Forte later recalled that the filmmakers had been excited about the response shortly before learning that Warner Bros. planned to abandon the release.
Public pressure helped keep the movie alive, and Warner Bros. eventually allowed it to be offered to potential buyers.
In 2025, independent distributor Ketchup Entertainment acquired worldwide distribution rights for approximately $50 million, giving the movie an unlikely second life. It finally reached theatres on August 28, 2026 — nearly three years after Warner Bros. had effectively declared it dead.
That history has given the movie an almost perfect real-world parallel to its story: a battered underdog that refuses to disappear ultimately gets another opportunity after taking on a much larger corporation.
What is the general consensus?
The response has been remarkably positive.
Critics have generally praised Coyote vs. Acme for understanding what makes classic Looney Tunes comedy work while giving Wile E. Coyote an unexpectedly sympathetic and emotional story.
Rather than treating the characters simply as nostalgic intellectual property, reviewers have highlighted the movie’s affection for traditional cartoon slapstick, its corporate satire, courtroom comedy and willingness to give the perpetually suffering Coyote genuine pathos. Some critics have also noted that the story works on two levels: children can enjoy the elaborate cartoon chaos, while adults can appreciate the jokes about lawyers, corporations and the absurdities of modern business.
The audience response has been similarly strong. Following its theatrical debut, moviegoers gave the film an A CinemaScore, while its Rotten Tomatoes critics score was around 95 per cent.
Commercially, the film also performed respectably considering its unusual history and independent distribution. It opened in second place in North America with about $15.5 million, giving Ketchup Entertainment the biggest opening weekend in the distributor’s history.
The broader consensus, therefore, is not simply that Coyote vs. Acme is surprisingly good considering what happened to it.
It is that the controversy surrounding its cancellation may have obscured something much simpler: Warner Bros. had shelved a finished, well-received Looney Tunes movie that audiences actually seem to like.
That makes the film’s eventual release especially fitting. Wile E. Coyote has spent generations surviving explosions, collapsing cliffs, defective rockets and his own disastrously unreliable ACME inventions.
This time, both the Coyote and his movie survived something else entirely: Hollywood.
