Coyote Vs. Acme

Reviewed by Fraser · 7 min read · Rated September 2026

The Movie That Refused to Die

Before we talk about a single frame of Coyote Vs. Acme, we have to talk about the fact that it exists at all, because honestly, that might be the most remarkable thing about it. This is the film that Warner Bros controversially shelved in November 2023, completely finished, for a reported $30 million tax write-off, before eventually selling it to Ketchup Entertainment for $50 million. The internet backlash from fans and creators was enormous, and after the studio allowed the filmmakers to shop it around, every bid got rejected as too low, and the film just sat in limbo until March 2025, when Ketchup bought the worldwide rights. And now, three years after it was supposed to disappear forever, it’s actually in cinemas. After a road that long and that unlikely, the movie’s very existence feels like a minor miracle. So the obvious question hanging over the whole thing is: was it worth saving? Short answer, yes. Longer answer, keep reading.

A little more context, because the history of this one is genuinely fascinating. The film is very loosely based on a 1990 magazine article published in The New Yorker by Ian Frazier, a fictional humour piece written entirely in the style of a legal brief, with Wile E. Coyote as the plaintiff suing the Acme Corporation. Somebody looked at that and thought, there’s a whole movie in this, and honestly, they were right. Warner Bros announced the film’s development back in August 2018, and it comes to us directed by Dave Green from a script by Samy Burch, the writer behind the Oscar-nominated screenplay for May December, with the story coming from Burch, Jeremy Slater and James Gunn, who also produced. And that Gunn connection pays off in the casting, but we’ll get there.

Toons on Trial

So what is this thing? It’s a hybrid of real actors and classic hand-drawn style Looney Tunes animation, the likes of which I haven’t properly seen since Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Wile E. Coyote, fed up after a lifetime of exploding gadgets and outlandish contraptions in his endless chase after the Road Runner, decides to take Acme to court, and he recruits a struggling billboard lawyer in Albuquerque to do it. I have to admit, it took me a moment to de-rust the ol’ memory banks and recall the names of all these classic characters. But once the gray goo cleared, it was an absolute delight to see them again, starting with Daffy Duck’s opening number in the first five minutes. And I was seriously impressed with how seamlessly the two worlds blend together. This craft has come a long way since Roger Rabbit. The actors meet the toons’ eye lines convincingly, and the cartoon objects nestled amongst the real ones strike a lovely balance without ever becoming distracting. For a bit of perspective, this is the first time these beloved cartoon characters have shared the screen with real actors since Space Jam: A New Legacy, and trust me, this is a far more loving piece of work than that one.

Watching Wile E. Coyote face off against the Road Runner again transported me straight back to my childhood, parked in front of the telly at five in the morning on a Saturday, gorging myself on Looney Tunes. But what makes the film work is that it doesn’t just coast on that nostalgia. It leans hard into the idea of Acme as an evil mega-corporation, and there’s a clever early scene in the Coyote’s workshop, stuffed to the brim with filing cabinets documenting every Acme-inflicted injury he’s ever suffered, that cements exactly where this story is heading. The little snippets of classic cartoons woven in as flashbacks, essentially entered into evidence, are a gorgeous touch. And as the case builds, our heroes uncover something much bigger: a secret, deeply unethical testing program called Project Sisyphus, in which Acme deliberately manufactured shoddy cartoon goods, using the Coyote’s endless suffering to perfect their products for the human market. It’s an absurd premise played almost completely straight, and that’s exactly the right call. The film mines huge laughs precisely because everyone on screen is taking it so seriously. The sight of the judge banging a squeaky cartoon gavel right next to his regular one got a proper laugh out of me.

The Cast Quietly Earns Its Keep

Let’s talk performances, because this is where the film quietly earns its keep. Will Forte plays Kevin Avery, the down-on-his-luck personal-injury lawyer who takes the case, and he’s an ideal casting choice. If you know Forte from Saturday Night Live or MacGruber, you know the manic side of him, but it’s his run on The Last Man on Earth, and especially his lovely, understated turn in Alexander Payne’s Nebraska, that shows the register he’s working in here. He has a real knack for playing the downtrodden straight man, and the film wisely lets him be the emotional anchor. Kevin takes the case rather unwillingly at first, suspecting his client of ulterior motives, and of course he’s right, because the Coyote is initially using the whole lawsuit as an elaborate scheme to lure the Road Runner to the witness stand and finally savour that long-awaited road runner stew. That’s such a perfect character beat. Lana Condor, who you’ll know from To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, plays Kevin’s sharp-eyed niece and intern Paige, the one who pushes the case all the way to trial, and she brings a lovely energy to it. And on the other side of the courtroom, John Cena turns up as Acme’s slick, intimidating corporate counsel, who also happens to be Kevin’s former boss, which turns the whole trial into a personal grudge match. Cena, who James Gunn already directed to career-best work in Peacemaker, is having a ball here playing pure corporate menace with a smile. By the way, my favourite bit of trivia on this one: the members of the law firm Avery, Jones and Maltese are all named after the old Termite Terrace alumni, with Kevin and Paige Avery named after director Tex Avery, and Dottie Jones named after Chuck Jones, the creator of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner himself. Though given the number of classic bird toons flying around this movie, I’d like to believe the name Avery is also a sly little nod to a keeper of birds.

And I have to hand it to the voice work. For characters originated as far back as the 1940s by performers long since passed, the cast here absolutely nails those classic cadences. Eric Bauza alone worked on 10 different characters for this film. But the smartest choice of all might be what they did with the star. Wile E. himself has no credited voice actor. Director Dave Green chose to keep him nonverbal, letting him communicate through physical comedy, facial expressions and written signs. That’s exactly true to the classic cartoons, and it means Forte essentially has to carry a two-hander opposite a silent partner. Somehow, the friendship that grows between them lands anyway. As the story escalates, with the case getting dismissed on a technicality and Kevin and the Coyote taking their fight all the way to the halls of Congress, presided over by a pitch-perfect Elmer Fudd, naturally, the film keeps sneaking in gags for the faithful. There’s a brief action set piece in the road involving Tweety Bird that manages a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it visual nod to The Matrix, and a certain famous rabbit leaves a treasure trove of evidence on our heroes’ doorstep at just the right moment. It’s that kind of movie, generous with its Easter eggs without ever stopping to point at them.

So, final thoughts. Is Coyote Vs. Acme going to set the box office alight? Probably not, and that’s completely fine. This is a heartfelt, unapologetically daft family film that asks you to really stretch that suspension of disbelief, humans and toons coexisting as an unremarkable fact of life, and rewards you handsomely for doing it. Parents looking to share a bit of their own childhood with a new generation, while still having a good laugh themselves, will find plenty here. And when it inevitably lands on the streamers in a few months, it’s primed to become a go-to, throw-it-on pick for Friday movie nights. Warner may not have had much confidence in this one, but I’m glad Ketchup had the cojones to give it a chance, because it made me chuckle more than I have in a good while, and in my book, that’s worth the price of admission all on its own.

But look, that’s just how it landed for me. Entertainment is subjective, and maybe a courtroom full of cartoons is a bridge too far for you, or maybe the nostalgia doesn’t hit the same if you didn’t grow up on those Saturday morning cartoons. What works for me may not work for you, and that’s completely okay. But for my money, this is the most purely likeable thing I’ve watched all year, and I’d love to know how it lands for you.