Nobody was ever supposed to see Coyote vs. Acme.
Warner Bros. finished making the movie in 2023, but in November of that year, CEO David Zaslav said he would never release it (despite a reported cost of $70 million), instead deciding to put it on the shelf as a tax write-off of about $30 million.
The filmmakers and cast were understandably furious, and the decision sparked an enormous public backlash.
Surprisingly, the suits at WB eventually allowed director Dave Green to shop his film around, and after years of uncertainty, independent distributor Ketchup Entertainment rescued the movie and has now brought it to theaters.
Thankfully, it was all worth it.
Coyote vs Acme is what it sounds like from its title: Wile E. Coyote has spent his entire existence buying increasingly elaborate products from Acme Corporation in his never-ending quest to catch the Road Runner. Rockets. Explosives. Springs. Magnets. You name it. They never work, and poor Wile E. keeps getting electrocuted, crushed, and otherwise abused in the process.
Eventually, enough is enough.
Enter Kevin Avery (Will Forte), a down-on-his-luck personal injury lawyer who specializes in settling cartoon accidents for a couple hundred bucks at a time. Wile E. seeks him out, armed with a mountain of defective Acme merchandise and a very legitimate grievance. Kevin isn’t prepared for such a large case, but he reluctantly agrees to take on the giant corporation, setting up a courtroom battle against Acme’s slick attorney Buddy Crane (John Cena).
The film is a live-action/animation hybrid that owes as much to Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Space Jam as it does to the 1990 New Yorker article by Ian Frazier that inspired it.
The genius of the setup is that the Wile E. Coyote we see here isn’t some radically different character. He’s still just the Wile E. we know from the cartoons. He’s still obsessed with catching the Road Runner. He’s still going to make spectacularly bad decisions. And he still can’t speak. But for once, we get to look at his life from a different perspective.
Maybe the guy isn’t a failure. Maybe he’s a victim of corporate malfeasance.
That’s a pretty funny idea on its own. But Coyote vs. Acme’s real-life backstory gives the whole thing an additional layer of meaning, and it turns the film into a metaphor for itself.
On screen, a little guy takes on a gigantic, seemingly unstoppable corporation because he believes he’s been screwed over by the system.
Off screen, a finished movie gets screwed over by a gigantic corporation and has to fight its way back into existence.
It’s almost too easy.
In the film, fictional Acme is an enormous, ubiquitous corporation that has its hands in every aspect of people’s lives and seems to have no problem steamrolling everyone in its path. And yet, Green and screenwriter Samy Burch wisely don’t turn the whole thing into a lecture about corporate America. Instead, they build a genuinely entertaining courtroom comedy around it.
In many ways, Coyote vs Acme is a tribute to the Looney Tunes characters we know and love. Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn, Tweety Bird, and Porky Pig all get plenty of opportunities here to remind us why they’ve lasted this long.
Yes, there are rocket-powered contraptions, exploding gadgets, cartoon physics, and enough elaborate slapstick to make any longtime fan smile. Some characters turn up in unexpected roles, such as U.S. Senator Elmer Fudd. The best gags aren’t simply references to old Looney Tunes cartoons; they’re extensions of the logic that made those cartoons work in the first place.
Don’t get the wrong idea, though: Coyote vs. Acme isn’t some hyperactive CGI assault designed to sell merchandise to kids, like Space Jam was. Green and Burch understand that the comedy comes from treating the absurdity seriously, and, equally important, that comedy alone isn’t enough to sustain such a high-concept premise.
(To put it another way, this is a movie that kids may enjoy, but it’s made for adults.)
Like the 1988 Disney classic, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Coyote vs. Acme understands that the juxtaposition of human and cartoon itself is funny. Here, cartoon characters aren’t celebrities living in some separate animated universe. They’re just part of the world. They interact with humans. They have jobs. They have emotions. They get checked into mental-health facilities. And, yes, they get screwed over by corporations.
All of which makes Wile E. the true heart of the film. His eternal optimism — despite an approximately 75-year track record of catastrophic failure — here becomes something admirable and the spark the film needs to stay on track.
As for his human counterparts, Forte is perfectly cast as the reluctant hero, Cena gets to have fun playing a slick corporate shark, and Lana Condor provides a grounded presence amid all the cartoon insanity.
Is Coyote vs. Acme perfect? No. But it is clever, funny, and genuinely likable.
Warner Bros. should never have put this movie on the shelf. Fortunately, like Wile E. Coyote himself, the team that made it refused to give up. And now, they’ve won.
Good. Coyote vs Acme absolutely deserves to be seen.
I’m giving it a B+.
That’s all, folks!
Martin's Musings 
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