Wile E. Coyote Movie being developed by Warner Bros.
 

Warner Bros is developing a Live Action / Animated Movie on Wile E. Coyote titled Coyote vs. Acme. The movie is gonna be directed by Dave Green, Who was the Director for TMNT: Out Of The Shadows.
https://variety.com/2019/film/news/l...os-1203440879/

So I guess Roadrunner is going to make a cameo maybe?

The movie is titled Coyote vs ACME, and stars John Cena

https://deadline.com/2022/02/john-ce...me-1234935112/

WB has killed the movie, like they did Batgirl
https://www.ign.com/articles/warner-...nished-filming

They should have kept this one and Scoob 2 and just shelve all the DC movies since they are rebooting them anyway.

I wish the international hacker/cyber-terrorists would focus on breaking and leaking these “vaulted” films to the public!

I wish this tax write off thing came with a clause that automatically committed the write offs to the public domain.

Oh, yeah, then it could even be considered something like charity work to the public!

Right, if you're not going to distribute it yourself and can't do so for profit, what's the point of just keeping it in a vault? At least something like Infinity Train got distributed before they wrote it off, meaning it is out there in the public (even it's technically illegal to make more copies of it), this movie just won't see the light of day unless it's leaked. Making these things public domain would be for the best because:

1. Sharing copies freely won't be considered piracy and you could even keep an open repository of relatively recent works.
2. Anyone who wants to can make derivatives (provided you make sure it's appropriate in relation to other works of course).
3. The original distributor could still make money off these things, they just wouldn't be able to stop anyone else from doing so, which would probably still be incentive to keep the practice to a minimum.

Because the tax write-off can almost nullify the money already thrown into it so far.

Yes but once you have your money back that way, does it not make sense to just let the public have the thing for free?

The problem is, If they were to release it, They would have to pay the royalties.

The test scores were supposed very positive so I have no idea why this was shelved.

I thought this was a really cool and clever idea. I was looking forward to this.

I personally believe it will get released one day. Hard to believe they’d never release a finished movie (Batgirl too, was not particularly waiting for that but I’d watch it). This just needed the characters put in.

"what's the point of just keeping it in a vault?"

tell that to Bruce Lee footage collectors.....Im sure his HK TV appearances are out there but its all about $$$

Yeah, I guess that makes sense from a financial (though not ethical) standpoint, but it's still sad to just have these things never get released at all.

It wont get released. The only way itll see the light of day is if someone gets into the files before everything is erased.

This site is paywalled, but the article claims the film might have a second chance with a new distributor

https://puck.news/warners-reverses-c...vs-acme-fight/

Warner will be screening the film to interested distributors

https://deadline.com/2023/11/coyote-...on-1235601190/

IGN tossed up an article on the distributor story too:
https://www.ign.com/articles/warner-...ZJ-9WQHjLUKaVE

Paramount is interested in potentially buying the film.

https://deadline.com/2023/12/coyote-...rs-1235658240/

Warner Bros. is negotiating to sell the film to Ketchup Entertainment, which distributed The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie that is currently in theaters.

https://deadline.com/2025/03/coyote-...up-1236329381/

Warner Bros. has completed the sale of the film to Ketchup Entertainment. It is scheduled to be released sometime in 2026.

https://deadline.com/2025/03/coyote-...up-1236354552/

Glad to hear that! It will be weird to have a Looney Tunes movie NOT coming out under the WB banner though.

Ketchup Entertainment huh? I guess they didn't like mustard or relish.

I knew it would get released somehow. I never took the complete cancellation seriously. It was already finished and there is interest in it.

Wouldn’t surprise me if the Batgirl and Scooby movie get released eventually somehow either.

I mean they're finished or basically finished, they'll most likely be released legally as "the lost movie" and rake in cash after all the hype, despite likely not being great movies. In any case the movies will leak eventually so I'm not too worried about them not coming out.
It's the stuff that was halfway through production and unfinished that is the true "lost media".

Good news to hear! I'm not sure what WB's problem is with not wanting to release Looney Tunes movies when they love to do more with Scooby Doo and Tom and Jerry over the years.

Still, nice to see this movie finally realized.

The film is heading to Cannes to find international distributors.

https://deadline.com/2025/05/coyote-...os-1236389900/

Yesterday at SDCC, it was announced that the film will be released on August 28, 2026.

https://variety.com/2025/film/news/c...te-1236471190/

Is it like a rights thing or trying to find good timing and set up an ad campaign? isn't the movie ready to show like, today if they wanted to?

The trailer is here.

https://variety.com/2026/film/news/c...ed-1236726983/

Saw it today and liked it!

Ending felt a bit too convenient of a wrap-up but I think it’s plausible enough. Surprised they made a few Looney Tunes villains or under-duress antagonists. Film overall had more of an edge than I expected. Not quite as heavy layered or sophisticated as Who Framed Roger Rabbit? but it did remind me of it from scene to scene. The animation on Wile is great, but some of the other Tunes have a stiff and un-finished quality (almost video game like). All human performances are pretty good and John Cena especially hams it up. The film seemingly wants to have both the Tex Avery and Chuck Jones versions of Daffy but there is in-universe implications for that. I was stunned they gave the ol’ Peter Lorre caricature such a sizable role in the film’s backstory!

Really glad this exists and the public can finally enjoy it!

Yeah, some of em had that Arc Systems Works look like Dragonball FighterZ. Foghorn Leghorn's eyes kinda bugged me.

The interesting thing is that cartoons and humans just coexist... But unlike Roger Rabbit, they just live as regular average no-name people. Like in Roger Rabbit they were actors that worked in animated shorts and whatnot and people knew who Bugs and Daffy were. Here no one knows who any of the characters are, regardless how popular they are in our world.

That's probably the perfect example in my mind. In the context of a game, you're surprised at how good it looks, because sometimes it makes you THINK you're actually watching a traditionally animated feature. Been in the context of an animated film, it just feels like... hey, did the model glitch out and cause Granny's glasses to disappear into her nose polygons? It's probably a result of the cel-shaded look not having clear lines to simulate ink-work but it looks weird. And Foghorn is probably the biggest offended because he has a prominent part where the audience has to "read" him while talking and taking the stand. And it all falls far short of the old WB shorts where he was over-the-top expressive.

I think WB doesn't quite appreciate Foghorn's appeal enough to render him with the same care they did with Wile.

It is certainly weird, and I'm not sure the "universe" the film created for itself has any internal logic. Yes, that world exists where humans and Toons (or least the WB-IP ones) live side-by-side. Everybody has mundane errands to run and day jobs but... the Toons are arguably age-less immortals while the humans age realistically? And yet nobody really pays attention to these eternals to know them all by name? Daffy Duck is just some guy who worked for ACME way back in the day? Porky Pig is just a guy who gets inconvenienced by gag violence? Bugs Bunny is an unknown to everybody except the audience, and maybe that's the joke? And there's one law firm that occasionally settles small Toon personal injury cases for a few hundred dollars each time? I guess the firm is like a more professional but lamer version of Valiant & Valiant, PIs for the modern day?

Maybe it's a giant meta-commentary on how kids today didn't grow up saturated with Looney Tunes media and merchandising like they did pre-1990s? And maybe even how the Warner Bros. studio has never fully understood their own mascots (hence the tagline at the beginning with WB being a subsidiary of ACME)?

There's a reason WB shelved it, there's no audience for looney tunes, if this movie barely breaks even that just means they were correct all along since it got a huge marketing push and viral support to "stick it to the man", "We want to see this movie!!", all those grifters would not have shown up if it weren't the case.
I'm not even dissing the movie, I want to watch it when it's streaming, it looks fun. I was likely the last generation to still grow up with some Looney Tunes as actual icons thanks to Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon airing them in the early mid 90s and even then they could barely compete against video games, and all the EXTREEEME 90s animated shows we had. Their cultural significance died by the year 2000, they've been on fumes since then with each generation after that, it's been 26+ years of kids not growing up with Looney Tunes as actual characters you should care about.

It's worth remembering that movies like this can find a 2nd life on streaming even if it seems like it's asking too much to get people to go out and watch it in a theatre (with little to no traditional marketing).

You also have to remember not everything animated is for kids. While there really weren't many (or any) adult jokes, this one was for the people that grew up on Coyote and Roadrunner. And all of us are pretty grown.

That coveted 40-65 year old demographic?

Disposable incomes because less likely to have kids than other generations?