Since Warner Bros. became Warner Bros. Discovery in 2022, the entertainment conglomerate has shocked many with its decisions to shelve movies that were completely filmed to make them tax write offs. After Batgirl and the second Scoob! movie were the first to go, the company also decided to shelve Coyote Vs. Acme back in November. John Cena, one of its stars, has now shared his thoughts on the decision.
Coyote Vs. Acme had a fun premise. The live-action Looney Tunes movie involves Wile E. Coyote deciding to get a lawsuit together to sue the Acme Corporation after every product he’s used from the company has famously backfired on him. Along with Cena, the movie starred Will Forte, Lana Condor and longtime Looney Tunes voice actor Eric Bauza doing several characters. Check out Cena’s thoughts on the decision:
There’s a lot there. And everyone’s perspective is different. We don’t own the film. That’s the tough part about this business, you do have a sense of ownership because you invest heart and soul. And [director] Dave Green and everybody involved, we made what we thought was a good movie.
After Warner Bros. initially made the decision, the studio was met with some major backlash. It doesn’t help that one writer called the movie “terrific,” saying there’s “been nothing like it since Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” Coyote vs. Acme was based on a story by James Gunn (you know the guy who did the Guardians of the Galaxy movies) along with Jeremy Slater and Samy Burch. We’re so curious if there was anything wrong with it or if this was purely a business decision to allow Warner Bros. Discovery to get more cash in its pockets.
After the backlash, the studio decided to take a step back and shop the movie around to other studios. However, Warner Bros. reportedly turned down multiple offers from Netflix, Amazon and Paramount when they didn’t get the $75 to $80 million they were seeking. Allegedly, the studio gets a $30 million tax write-off for shelving the movie. Cena also said this while speaking to The Wrap about Coyote vs. Acme:
I would have liked to seen it given a chance. But I’m just one person. And if it was shelved, I would have to think that it was shelved for the right reasons and it was a good business decision. I think I would have tremendous regret and shame if I look back on the legacy of the movie and it was shelved for reasons other than that. So I have to believe in the process. And I love the movie, my heart and soul is in there, but it’s somebody else’s project to do what they want with and they’ve chosen accordingly.
It cannot feel great to spend time on a project like Coyote vs. Acme only for it to never see the light of day. John Cena shared he’d like to believe it was scrapped for “the right reasons” in order to sustain his belief in the process. Between Cena’s name alone, never mind the legacy of the Looney Tunes, it doesn’t seem like there’s a world where a ton of people wouldn’t have tuned into Coyote vs. Acme. Cena sounds like he had a great time working on the film, but it’s a shame he cannot share that joy with audiences.
So Coyote vs. Acme is not among 2024 movies, but Looney Tunes fans can at least look forward to The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, expected to come out later this year.