Warner Bros. shelved it, tried to write it off as a tax deduction, and lost. Coyote vs. Acme is coming to theaters on August 28, 2026, and the first trailer makes sure you haven’t forgotten how it got there.
The long-delayed live-action/animation hybrid was completed back in 2022 before Warner Bros. Discovery unceremoniously vaulted it in November 2023, preferring to claim a tax write-off over releasing a finished film. Independent distributor Ketchup Entertainment subsequently acquired the rights in a deal reported to be worth around $50 million and has now dropped a first proper trailer — one that opens by billing the film as “the movie Acme didn’t want you to see,” a thinly veiled jab at its former distributor. The film follows Wile E. Coyote teaming up with accident attorney Kevin Avery (Will Forte) to sue the Acme Corporation for decades of defective products, with John Cena (doo doo doo dooooooo) playing slick corporate counsel on the other side. The screenplay is by Samy Burch, from a story she developed with James Gunn and Jeremy Slater, inspired by a 1990 New Yorker article of the same name and premise.
Ketchup previously pulled off a similar rescue operation with another shelved Looney Tunes project, The Day the Earth Blew Up, which cleared $15.5 million at the global box office in March 2025. Modest numbers, but proof the audience is there for this kind of animated throwback.
There are apparently more than ten Looney Tunes cameos, including Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny, and the self-aware framing — Acme (read: Warner) as the villain of the piece — is hard not to root for. Whether it translates to ticket sales is the open question, but after three years of uncertainty, just having a release date feels like a win. Mark August 28 in your calendar if you’ve been following this one.