After seeing a healthy $3.1 million opening for The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, Ketchup Entertainment is reportedly in talks to rescue another shelved Warner Bros. project. The company is negotiating an all-rights acquisition for the live-action/animated hybrid Looney Tunes feature Coyote vs. Acme, estimated at around $50M. A successful agreement could see the much lauded, much lamented project hit theaters in 2026.
Deadline, which reported the possible deal, did not receive official comments from WB or Ketchup.
Based on the humorous New Yorker article by Ian Frazier (1990), Coyote vs. Acme finds Wile E. Coyote (voiced by Eric Bauza) at the end of his tether when one too many ACME products ruins his plans to catch the elusive Roadrunner. Taking the company to court, Wile E. and his lawyer (Will Forte) go up against the lawyer’s intimidating boss (John Cena) — but their growing, unlikely friendship across species and cartoon lines spurs them on. Lana Condor also stars.
The film is directed by Dave Green (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, Earth to Echo) from a screenplay by Samy Burch (May December), who worked out the story with Jeremy Slater and producer James Gunn, now co-head of DC Studios.
Coyote vs. Acme was originally slated as a straight-to-streaming release on HBO Max in 2023. The completed film was later abandoned for an estimated $70 million chunk of the freshly merged Warner Bros. Discovery’s cost-recouping content dump, and previous hints of the film finding a new home did not pan out — possibly due to the studio’s hard line on a $75-80M price tag — despite warm praise from industry luminaries and interest from several streaming and theatrical labels.
The post-merger purge also impacted the animated movie Scoob! Holiday Haunt and live-action Batgirl, as well as Batman: Caped Crusader, which was picked up by Prime Video.
[Source: Deadline]
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