From Tax Write-Off to Theatrical Release: The Strange Resurrection of 'Coyote vs. Acme'
A completed film that Warner Bros. shelved as a tax write-off in 2023 will reach cinemas on 28 August 2026, after a three-year saga that turned a Looney Tunes comedy into a cause célèbre. Ketchup Entertainment, an upstart distributor, paid $50 million for the rights to Coyote vs. Acme and will release the film theatrically in the United States (The Hollywood Reporter).
The live-action/animated hybrid stars John Cena, Lana Condor, Will Forte and P.J. Byrne, and is set inside the ACME warehouse — the fictional manufacturer of every product Wile E. Coyote ever ordered in pursuit of the Road Runner. Director Dave Green, who began his career as a production assistant on Sam Raimi's Spider-Man sequels, had finished the film when Warner Bros. Discovery elected not to release it, instead taking a $30 million tax write-off (Deadline). The studio even held what became known as a "funeral screening" before the film slipped into indefinite limbo (The Hollywood Reporter).
Fan outcry was immediate and sustained. Warner Bros. briefly explored selling the film, fielded several bids, rejected them, and then appeared to pull it off the market entirely — before ultimately reversing course and allowing an outside distributor to take it on (The Hollywood Reporter; Rolling Stone). Warner Bros. Discovery chief executive David Zaslav defended the broader content cuts at the time, saying, "We did not get rid of any show that was helping us" (Los Angeles Times).
The film's first public screening was held at Comic-Con in San Diego, slotted into Saturday evening as a tribute to the fans who had campaigned for its release. Green nearly stayed away. He was too nervous to watch the film again, he said, until producer Chris DeFaria persuaded him to attend. The audience received the film enthusiastically (The Hollywood Reporter).
DeFaria and Green have spoken every day for the past six years, a bond that predates the film's production and outlasted its long exile. DeFaria had previously served as president of animation at Warner Bros. (The Hollywood Reporter). Green, whose earlier film Earth to Echo was offloaded by Disney to Relativity Media and went on to earn more than three times its budget, has been candid about the roller-coaster ride of bringing the hybrid feature to screens (Animation Magazine; The Hollywood Reporter).
What makes the Coyote vs. Acme arc stand out is the backdrop. The shelving has been described as a defining misstep of Zaslav's tenure at Warner Bros. Discovery, a period in which planned releases The Bride! and Supergirl also bombed at the box office, and in which Zaslav's proposed merger with Paramount has stalled into what insiders describe as a public-relations nightmare (The Hollywood Reporter).
Green is already looking ahead. His next film, Hex, is in development at 20th Century — an R-rated horror-comedy described as a complete departure from the family-friendly world of ACME (The Hollywood Reporter). But first, on 28 August, a film that was written off, buried and nearly lost will finally play in front of the audience it was made for.
