Coyote Vs. Acme may get a release after all

Just like its titular cartoon canine, Coyote Vs. Acme may yet survive the experience of stepping off a cliff to find only air beneath. While Road Runner always dodges Coyote’s Acme-purchased hijinks completely unscathed, its Coyote’s “resilience and persistence,” in the words of director Dave Green, that form a neater analogy for the current position of this little $70 million film that could.

Last week, it was reported that Warner Bros. Discovery had shelved the fully-completed and audience-tested film to score one of their precious tax write-offs. If you recall, the David Zaslav-led studio previously did the same to the Scoob! sequel and Batgirl, with no legal recourse for either of those films to ever see the light of day. But the team behind Coyote Vs. Acme was not going to go down without a fight. Throughout the rest of the week, the film’s composer, writers, and other creatives leaked behind-the-scenes footage from set and generally railed against WBD’s decision, inciting a massive outpouring of support from the rest of the animation community.

Whatever the straw that broke the camel’s back was in the end (our money is on this X post about money), the team’s bullying seems to have worked. According to Puck News, WBD reversed their decision and is now allowing the film to be shopped around to other potential distributors. This report was confirmed by Deadline, which also added that test screenings of the film are being set up this week for Prime Video, Apple TV, and Netflix, with Amazon as an apparent “leading contender” in what is sure to be a Road Runner-speed race. It’s not abundantly clear how this move benefits WBD at all other than as a bit of face-saving, but we can’t really think of too many decisions the studio has made in the past few years that do make sense to us. For whichever studio does pick this one up, congrats in advance on the free viral marketing campaign.