Coyote Vs. Acme is probably getting scrapped anyway, in appalling movie news

David Zaslav and Warner Bros. Discovery did not help their reputation by following up the Batgirl scrapping by deciding to do the same to Coyote Vs. Acme. There are a lot of reasons the decision to never release this film stung worse: that the movie had so far tested well with audiences; that the Looney Tunes is the flagship WB property (Bugs Bunny is literally the mascot!); and worst, that it signaled a hostile pattern of behavior from a major studio that has already been replicated across the industry.

There was a glimmer of hope when WBD offered other studios a chance to take Coyote Vs. Acme off its hands. But according to a worrying new report from The Wrap, that hope was false. It doesn’t sound like WBD ever really intended to allow this movie out into the world at all. In fact, Zaslav—who has tried to rehabilitate his bad reputation by positioning himself in profiles as a genuine movie lover—never even bothered to watch a cut of the film.

It seems that instead of actively looking for a new home for Coyote Vs. Acme, the company was actually just trying to “run out the clock,” as one source put it. Sure, big studios like Netflix, Amazon, and Paramount made offers (Paramount even apparently wanted to give the movie a healthy theatrical run), but WBD rejected them because they came in below the desired $75 to $80 million price tag. Here’s the crucial part, though: WBD reportedly didn’t tell anybody that was the price, and it didn’t allow any of the studios to give a counteroffer once the initial offer was rejected. “It was a ‘take it or leave it’ situation, one that the other studios didn’t even know they were entering into,” sources told The Wrap.

Does this sound like the actions of a company that was actually willing to let its flagship characters fly under a different mast? “They just want to get this behind them,” an executive reportedly told Coyote Vs. Acme producer Chris DeFaria. “They want to close the books.” WBD supposedly never even let the filmmakers in on the sale process, and didn’t communicate with them at all about the offers that were coming in. The Wrap sources suggest WBD wasn’t even going to make a statement about failing to find the movie a home, but rather let the movie fade out of the cultural consciousness. What more evidence do we need that shopping Coyote Vs. Acme around at all was just a face-saving measure in the wake of backlash from fans and the creative community (who rallied around the #SaveCoyoteVsAcme hashtag)?

The big, flashing-lights warning sign here is that Warner Bros. Discovery is not a safe place for filmmakers to take their work, especially for creatives who are up-and-coming or less well-known. If mid-level films with strong brand ties like Batgirl and Coyote Vs. Acme are on the chopping block, what else is Zaslav willing to sacrifice on the altar of profit? And profit may not be the only factor in these unceremonious axings, either: The Wrap notes that Coyote Vs. Acme was greenlit by a previous WBD regime. Could such a petty reason really be why Zaslav refused to give the movie a chance—even just to sit through a screening? We can’t know for sure, but whatever way you slice it, it’s a seriously troubling view of the current inner workings of Hollywood.