Lana Condor, left, and Will Forte, right, with Wile E. Coyote, voiced by Eric Bauza, in Coyote vs. Acme.The Associated Press
To the best of his recollection, Will Forte has never tried to kill an animal using dynamite, giant boulders or rocket-powered roller skates.
Yet when the Saturday Night Live veteran first heard the news that his Looney Tunes movie, Coyote vs. Acme, had been permanently shelved by its studio for tax write-off purposes, the actor’s reaction was similar to what his animated co-star, Wile E. Coyote, frequently felt when one of his schemes to ensnare the Roadrunner (often quite literally) blew up in his face: “Extreme frustration, fiery frustration. A lot of anger, white hot anger.”
Today, though, Forte has cooled off. Partly because he has had time to reflect on the situation. But mostly because Coyote vs. Acme is finally, miraculously seeing the light of day.
What’s more: Because the comedy is itself stylized as a David vs. Goliath battle about standing up to rampant corporate greed, the fact that the film is being released at all despite the best-worst efforts of its own studio marks a true victory for the creative community in an increasingly hostile media landscape. In pure accidental Wile E. fashion, Coyote vs. Acme just might be the most important movie of the year.
“I mean, I can still get worked up about it, but you do get hindsight the further you go,” Forte says in an interview with The Globe. “Because of the insane situation that this movie went through, it might even help get more eyes on it. It was not very fun at the time, and it’s very easy for me to mentally go back to that place.”
When Will Forte's Looney Tunes movie, Coyote vs. Acme, had been permanently shelved by its studio for tax write-off purposes, the actor’s reaction was similar to what his animated co-star, Wile E. Coyote, felt when his plans blew up in his face: white hot anger.Chris Pizzello/The Associated Press
That place, to borrow Forte’s words, was a Hollywood landscape so absurd and silly and simply unbelievable as to rival even the wildest Looney Tunes caper.
A loose adaptation of a 1990 New Yorker comedy essay by Ian Frazier, Coyote vs. Acme had been in development for years at Warner Bros., the studio home of Bugs Bunny and Co. The basic story imagined Wile E. taking legal action against Acme, the fictional all-purpose corporation that kept selling him defective instruments of death and destruction.
Instead of a traditionally animated film, though, the movie was conceived as a hybrid of cartoon and live-action performances, with Warner Bros. aiming more for the innovative legacy of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and less the awkwardness of such efforts as Cool World or The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle.
Eventually, director Dave Green came on to direct a script by Samy Burch (who would later earn an Oscar nomination for her work on Todd Haynes’ May December); superhero stalwart James Gunn (who has since worked on franchises for both Disney’s Marvel brand and Warner’s DC Studios) was aboard as a producer; and flesh-and-blood comedy star Forte headlined the cast as Wile E.’s ambulance-chasing lawyer, alongside such co-stars as John Cena (as Acme’s dastardly counsel) and Lana Condor (Forte’s harried colleague).
Dave Green, seen here, directs Coyote vs. Acme, with James Gunn as producer and Samy Burch as screenwriter.Chris Pizzello/The Associated Press
For a while, it seemed as if Wile E. would finally have his day in court, so to speak, and audiences would get their first big-screen Looney Tunes movie since the disappointing 2021 sequel Space Jam: A New Legacy.
But then an Acme-sized anvil was dropped atop the production’s head.
In November, 2023, about a year after filming began in Albuquerque, N.M., the movie was abruptly shelved. Not temporarily, but forever.
About a year and a half earlier, David Zaslav had become the new chief executive of Warner Bros. after the merger between the media giant and Discovery Inc., and one of his top priorities was cutting costs. Already, Zaslav had taken the unprecedented step of quashing two nearly completed productions – Batgirl and a new Scooby-Doo feature – for tax write-off purposes. (To this day, the films have never been seen.)
Wile E. was next on his list. There would be no opportunity for producers to shop the film elsewhere, or for even the tiniest of theatrical releases. Streaming was also off the table. That’s all, folks.
“I remember getting a phone call from my team telling me that the film had been tested that week with audiences, and the feedback was really great and we were all happy and excited. And then it was the day after I got the call saying, actually, no. It’s going to be shelved. It was like whiplash,” recalls Forte’s co-star Condor.
Condor, who plays Forte's colleague in Coyote vs. Acme, sees the previously-shelved film as a great example of art imitating life.Chris Pizzello/The Associated Press
“You didn’t want to believe it. To have it just straight up be shelved, not even a conversation, I didn’t even know that you could do that. This was hundreds of people’s work and artistry. I didn’t even know it was an option to throw away years of hard work and dedication.”
At the time, Condor felt that perhaps she was viewing the situation through rose-coloured glasses. Maybe the movie wasn’t actually good? Her career would be better without having to defend a dud. But then she, along with Forte and other members of the cast, went to what the filmmakers called a “funeral screening” – possibly the very last time that the completed film would be presented.
Eric Bauza voices Wile E. Coyote in Coyote vs. Acme.Chris Pizzello/The Associated Press
“I watched it and saw how great it was, and that just pissed me off more. I felt like I was being gaslit,” Condor says. “At the same time, the silver lining is that all the outcry from fans, the support we’ve received from fellow filmmakers in the industry, ended up being the reason it’s going to be seen.”
Indeed, after news of the decision spread, pressure mounted so high on Warner executives – the move was, after all, akin to Disney throwing Mickey Mouse into Scrooge McDuck’s vault, never to be seen or heard from again – that the studio relented. Eventually, the film’s distribution rights were sold for a reported US$50-million to the upstart Ketchup Entertainment, which had previously rescued another, less high-profile Looney Tunes title, the 2024 Porky Pig and Daffy Duck team-up The Day the Earth Blew Up. (In Canada, Coyote vs. Acme is being distributed by VVS Films.)
Hollywood has a long history of making movies that poke fun at their own inner workings. In fact, Warner Bros. itself can claim the greatest example of this sub-genre, with Joe Dante’s Gremlins 2: The New Batch relentlessly skewering the early-nineties landscape on the WB lot. Yet the release of Coyote vs. Acme represents an entirely new level of showbiz irony.
This is a satire about corporate malfeasance that so happened to be dropped for the most cruel and crass of economic justifications – and now just might become more successful at the box office than its former studio’s biggest summer release (that’d be the super-bomb Supergirl). All at a time when Warner Bros. itself might be subsumed into a bigger corporate machine via the proposed acquisition by Paramount Skydance.
Coyote vs. Acme might become more successful at the box office than its former studio’s biggest summer release.Chris Pizzello/The Associated Press
“I think you’d be blind not to see the irony there,” Condor says with a laugh. “I’ve had my own conversations about how this film is a great example of art imitating life.”
“I did see the irony at the time, but it did not comfort me,” Forte adds in his typically deadpan fashion, before going on to note that the most difficult part for him was watching how the film’s director, Green, was being treated.
“We kept in touch during the whole process, and that was the saddest thing for me. As hard as we worked on it, Dave worked a thousand times more than any of us. He put his heart and soul into it, and he’ll never say this because he’s such a gentleman, but the way he got treated, man, they did some pretty uncool things,” he adds. “That guy is a saint.”
In a way, Forte’s involvement in the Coyote vs. Acme saga also closes a curious loop for the actor. His best-known SNL character remains the MacGyver-esque mercenary MacGruber, whose constant bumblings with explosives often left the character in the same near-fatal circumstances as Wile E.
What’s more: MacGruber was then brought to life in a big-screen adventure that flopped – only to be miraculously resurrected for a television series years later, proof that Forte could be as relentlessly stubborn and committed as Wile E. himself.
“I’ve never made that connection. I think you might have something there,” Forte says, somewhat sincerely. But mostly, the actor’s involvement for this project was the culmination of a lifelong dream.
“I don’t remember life without Looney Tunes. It was just always around. I was born in 1970, so it was just what you’d watch when you got home from school every day,” he adds. “I don’t think I realized how emotional a thing it was for me until I actually saw myself onscreen with these characters.”
Coyote vs. Acme opens in theatres Aug. 28.