It’s a travesty that Coyote vs. Acme almost never saw the light of day

Coyote vs. Acme was very close to never gracing our screens after Warner Bros. opted to shelve the completed movie in 2023, preferring a tax write-off instead – the same unpopular cancellation decision that had also been made for Batgirl and Scoob! Holiday Haunt.

It’s never a pleasant business for film fans to be reminded in such blatant terms that Hollywood is a money-making business – and that is usually the first priority.

Luckily, Warner Bros. saw the light after public outcry and allowed the filmmakers to shop the movie to other distributors. 

Thus Ketchup Entertainment rode to the rescue in 2025 and, for a reported $50million (£37m), won the right to finally present this wacky but heartfelt film to audiences. And I’d say every penny was well spent.

For millennials, Coyote vs. Acme is like the new version of Space Jam, 30 years later. The comparison is an easy one, considering it’s the same basic premise of the enduring popular Looney Tunes featuring alongside humans.

I say enduringly, but it can be argued that the Looney Tunes have actually fallen a little by the wayside with youngsters today, who spend their time watching the likes of Bluey, Paw Patrol and SpongeBob SquarePants instead.

But Coyote vs. Acme brings these cartoons back with a bang and a glorious burst of zany energy. And as with the best family films, I’m not sure if Coyote vs. Acme is leaning more towards kids or adults thanks to its effortless universal appeal.

It’s also better than Space Jam thanks to its whip-smart simple premise: what if these cartoons, so long put through the gruesome wringer for our entertainment, sought compensation for their pain and suffering? For every cartoonishly explicit injury from every dropped anvil, parachute failure or faulty experiment with Acme-branded rocket sleds and spring-powered shoes?

Based on satirist Ian Frazier’s ingenious 1990 New Yorker article, Coyote vs. Acme focuses on Wile E. Coyote, and ponders the idea of a case brought by him against the Acme Corporation for corporate malfeasance and liability, based on 77 years’ worth of their disastrous products causing the plaintiff ‘personal injury, loss of business income, and mental suffering’ in his professional pursuit of the Road Runner.

All the other Looney Tunes are present and correct too, in a world where Porky Pig, Tweety Pie and Bugs Bunny mill about alongside the residents of New Mexico, with the Warner Bros. lore particularly strong thanks to Dr. Lorre as well, the parody Peter Lorre character from the 1940s, whose inclusion will especially delight die-hard fans.

Emmy winner and longtime Looney Tunes voice actor Eric Bauza is, of course, on board too, with support from the likes of Jim Cummings on the character voice front.

Coyote vs. Acme captures some of that fantastic zip of Disney’s strongest animated films like Aladdin thanks to Oscar nominee Samy Burch’s (May December) clever screenplay, mixing a strong story with relentless jokes and small details, alongside shades of light and dark, while director Dave Green makes sure the movie’s human characters shine in their performances too.

Saturday Night Live alum Will Forte is excellent foil to the Looney Tunes as lazy lawyer Kevin Avery, who’s long settled into pursuing only the lowest hanging fruit, winning a few hundred dollars here and there for his clients like Porky with routine claims where he accepts the first offer. With his mundane brown suit, tacky billboard adverts and poky office, he’s a great downtrodden straight man opposite the ‘toons.

But when Wile E. catches Kevin’s TV advert after one too many thwarted attempts to catch the Road Runner, the mute cartoon turns up at his office, complete with a collection of his famous written signs to ease conversation, which are delightfully specific.

When Kevin’s niece Paige (To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before’s Lana Condor) convinces him to properly consider the merit of Will E.’s case, we end up inside the hallowed halls of Acme and dealing with Kevin’s old college pal – from Harvard, no less – Buddy Crane (John Cena), who is now Acme’s sharkish chief legal counsel.

It’s a satisfying David-and-Goliath scenario, perfectly added to by Foghorn Leghorn’s casting as the aggressive corporation’s unscrupulous CEO, while Cena fully commits to his role as the bullying baddie. When he yanks open his desk drawer after snapping a pencil in frustration, there’s an entire handful of animated pencils with eyes, quivering in fear at the prospect of being picked by him. And it’s in moments like this that Coyote vs. Acme proves its quality against the high standard of 1988’s hybrid live-action animated classic Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

It’s smart, it’s simple and there are gags for the grown-ups, from the awkwardness of a human character announcing that you can’t make an omelette without cracking a few eggs in front of Foghorn to Kevin’s morose colleague Dottie (Martha Kelly) booking him in for plasma donation when it looks like everything is about to go belly up.

Coyote vs. Acme is in UK and Irish cinemas from August 21.