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To Kill a Mocking Bird

Perhaps you heard about Dave Green's "Coyote vs. Acme" when it became a battle cry in late 2023. Under the regime of David Zaslav, Warner Brothers Discovery began canceling projects or shelving completed ones for tax breaks, which was the fate of the Looney Tunes film "Coyote vs. Acme" when Zaslav shelved the completed $70 million film so the company could enjoy a $30 million tax write-off (this was after he pulled the cord on the "Batgirl" film as well).

It's easy to be romantic about movies - in fact, it's almost impossible to not be. But, it's even easier to be naive about them. Of course, anyone who loves film - or any medium of art - wants to see what they're passionate about succeed. In theory, if someone works as a studio head, it's safe to assume they would want the same as well, correct? But, people in Zaslav's position are beholden to a general ledger and not a romanticized notion of art. That's show business.

When it was announced that "Coyote vs. Acme" wouldn't be released by Warner Bros., Green's film became a cause across the internet. That's the powerful thing about people who are passionate about movies: they will make their voices heard. The movie was then given the go-ahead to be shopped around and the fairly-new distributor Ketchup Entertainment swooped in and saved the day on the completed project, bringing the movie to theaters and giving it a life outside of being dumped on streaming platforms.

That's an immense amount of pressure for "Coyote vs. Acme" to live up to. Moviegoers (those who pay attention to the wheelings and dealings of Hollywood, at least) are going to want to support the film, so the best thing the movie could do is show up in multiplexes and be a good movie. Thankfully, it has succeeded in that aspect.

Looney Tunes fans will likely get the most out of the movie for all its self-referential humor. Even if you don't fall into that particular category, "Coyote vs. Acme" is a silly and clever film that seamlessly blends the animation with the live-action components. It's a good-spirited picture that could be a modest hit in the dog days of summer, if moviegoers truly want to rally around a movie that fell victim to a corporation's bottom line.

While many iconic characters make an appearance, "Coyote vs. Acme" centers on Wile E. Coyote's quest to capture the Roadrunner. Coyote is sick of all his opportunities to catch up to the Roadrunner getting thwarted by the Acme Corporation's animated products being used to try and stop him. For every train or explosive that stands in Coyote's way, he becomes more and more angry against Acme. So, he decides to enlist the help of failing billboard lawyer Kevin Avery (Will Forte) to sue the Acme corporation.

"Coyote vs. Acme" can be busy with the amount of characters that come in and out of the film - both animated and live-action - but the central story is the underdog tale of a has-been lawyer and his animated client. Kevin doesn't seem to have the confidence to go up against a big corporation and their slick lawyer Buddy Crane (John Cena), who went to law school with Kevin. But, in typical underdog film fashion, they give it their best shot

The screenplay, written by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Samy Burch ("May December"), sharply blends the animated humor and Looney Tunes references with a standard issue legal drama. The two halves of the film seem like movies we've seen before, but when combined through Burch's screenplay (who shares the screen story credit with James Gunn and Jeremy Slater), "Coyote vs. Acme" feels like something wholly original.

"Coyote vs. Acme" can be dizzying at times, but it moves with ease and there's a sense of joy radiating from the screen that the film got to see the life of day. It would have been a hard pill to swallow to release a movie that wasn't good, but the people behind "Coyote vs. Acme" knew they had something unique that was worth sharing with the world so the fight continued to get the movie to screens. On all fronts, mission accomplished.