Coyote vs. Acme, the film Warner Bros. shelved for a tax write-off, opens nationwide

Nearly three years after Warner Bros. Discovery shelved a finished, test-screened feature film rather than release it, "Coyote vs. Acme" opens in more than 3,000 theaters across the United States on Friday, distributed by a small independent company that paid roughly $50 million to rescue it from the studio's vault.

The live-action-and-animation hybrid, which sends Wile E. Coyote into a courtroom to sue the Acme Corporation over decades of defective anvils and rocket skates, carries the best critical reception of any Looney Tunes feature since Rotten Tomatoes began tracking scores, at 95 percent positive from 152 critics, with a 92 percent audience score built on early screenings, according to the film's Rotten Tomatoes page. Box office trackers now project a $14 million to $16 million opening weekend, roughly double the $7 million to $10 million range analysts had penciled in over the summer.

A finished film, unmade by an accounting decision

"Coyote vs. Acme" was shot in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the spring of 2022 on a budget of roughly $70 million to $72 million, directed by Dave Green from a screenplay credited to Samy Burch, Jeremy Slater and James Gunn, who also produced. Warner Bros. tested it favorably with audiences and had scheduled it for release. On November 9, 2023, the studio instead pulled the completed film from its slate to book an estimated $30 million in tax losses, a decision made after production had wrapped and one the crew learned about only after the fact. The move drew immediate criticism from filmmakers and industry figures, and four days later, on November 13, 2023, Warner Bros. reversed course and said it would let the filmmaking team shop the movie to other distributors.

That search stalled for more than a year. Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Paramount all considered the film but, according to trade reporting, did not meet Warner Bros.' asking price of roughly $75 million to $80 million. The impasse left "Coyote vs. Acme" in a kind of limbo distinct from most shelved studio films: it existed, it had tested well, and it had no way to reach an audience.

An indie distributor bets $50 million on a cartoon coyote

Ketchup Entertainment, a distribution company founded in 2023 and best known before this deal for smaller theatrical releases, closed the acquisition in March 2025 for a reported $50 million, its largest deal to date. "We're thrilled to have made a deal with Warner Bros. Pictures to bring this film to audiences worldwide," Ketchup chief executive Gareth West said in a statement at the time reported by the Hollywood Reporter. "Coyote vs. Acme is a perfect blend of nostalgia and modern storytelling."

The company subsequently lined up a $100 million prints-and-advertising financing facility, brought on Qube Wire for digital theatrical distribution and V10 Entertainment to handle international sales, and committed to a wide release on more than 3,000 screens, according to Ketchup's own announcements. A marketing campaign built around the tagline "the film Acme doesn't want you to see" leaned into the film's real-world backstory, and an April trailer drew a reported 25 million views in its first 24 hours. The film premiered to an enthusiastic crowd at San Diego Comic-Con on July 25, and its distributor page lists a cast led by Will Forte, Lana Condor, John Cena and P.J. Byrne, while the movie's own official site shows nationwide showtimes for Friday's wide release.

The people who kept pushing

The film is also arriving with an unusual credit: a thank-you to the fans and industry observers who kept the story of its shelving alive on social media between 2023 and 2025, pressure that filmmakers and Ketchup executives have both said factored into the eventual sale. Director Dave Green, in an interview published this week, described the campaign's effect on the production team during the years the film sat unreleased.

"It's led us to this moment today where the movie is unbelievably coming out in theaters and is able to be shared with people theatrically, which is, of course, the absolute dream, dream way to see the movie," Green said, describing the advocacy as "a communal pushing a boulder up a hill," in comments reported by Yahoo Entertainment.

For the cast, exhibitors and Ketchup Entertainment itself, Friday's opening functions as a test on several fronts at once. It is the largest release in the young distributor's history, eclipsing the $8.8 million opening of its earlier Looney Tunes theatrical release, "The Day the Earth Blew Up," in 2025. It is also a test of whether strong reviews and a sympathetic origin story can translate into ticket sales for a mid-budget family comedy competing against established franchises, and, more broadly, whether a film a major studio wrote off as worthless can still find a paying audience.

A crowded opening weekend

"Coyote vs. Acme" opens into a competitive Labor Day-adjacent weekend. It faces continued box office strength from "Spider-Man: Brand New Day," which is closing in on $900 million domestically while eyeing a fifth straight weekend atop the chart, as well as the wide expansion of Ridley Scott's drama "The Dog Stars," according to weekend forecasts compiled by Deadline. Industry estimates now put "Coyote vs. Acme" in range of a third-place finish, an outcome that would count as a genuine win for a film that spent nearly two years with no distributor at all.

The film's reception has also renewed a debate in the industry over the practice of shelving completed films purely for tax purposes, a maneuver studios have defended as standard accounting but that critics argue destroys finished creative work and the labor behind it. Whether "Coyote vs. Acme" performs well enough this weekend to be read as vindication for that criticism, or simply as a one-off rescue of an unusually beloved property, will become clearer once final grosses are reported Sunday night. For now, distributors, exhibitors and the film's own crew are treating Friday's release as an ending that, three years ago, was not supposed to happen.