By Luke Thomas, September 8, 2026
There’s a level of irony to the existence of “Coyote vs. Acme,” the animation live-action hybrid about a cartoon coyote suing a megacorporation driven solely by profit was initially shelved by its studio for a $30 million tax write-off back in November of 2023.
Luckily, the story of “Coyote vs. Acme” didn’t end there. The immediate backlash to Warner Bros. Discovery’s decision to hide away a finished film led to a reversal of the cancellation, allowing other distributors to bid for the rights. Those rights eventually landed in the hands of Ketchup Entertainment in 2025 for $50 million, who finally released the film a year later.
Directed by Dave Green and written by Samy Burch of “May December” fame, “Coyote vs. Acme” adapts Ian Frazier’s New Yorker humor essay into a gleeful film of two converging Sisyphean plights: a scrappy law firm suing an immovable object and an obsessive coyote chasing an unstoppable force.
After failing to capture and eat the Road Runner one, or more accurately, one hundred, too many times, Wile E. Coyote (unvoiced!) finally places the blame on the Acme megacorporation, realizing every one of its products he’s bought has metaphorically, and often literally, blown up in his face. Devising a plan to sue Acme for every failed product he’s bought, Wile E. Coyote embarks to Albuquerque, New Mexico, for the legal help of cartoon injury lawyer Kevin Avery (Will Forte), with a secret elaborate ruse to catch the Road Runner through the lawsuit.
Avery would rather take an easy settlement despite his intern and niece Paige’s (Lana Condor) eagerness — one of the less conceptually interesting, but cleanly utilized conflicts of the film — but Wile E. Coyote is able to manipulate his complaint case with some Toon Force, forcing Avery to commit to an exhaustive lawsuit of the Acme corporation while pitting him against his old peer, now Acme lawyer, Buddy Crane (John Cena).
Wile E. Coyote’s lifelong goal of catching the Road Runner, built up from a pure obsession to a passionate one, pairs extremely well with the central plot of suing the largest company in the world, two impossible, Sisyphean tasks. “Coyote vs. Acme” is at its best whenever these two goals coincide, finding their reasons to continue pushing that boulder despite their continuous failures.
Although the nature of a plot so tied with failing at a lofty task likewise has the script struggle to let Avery figure out what’s going on behind the curtain. A totally anonymous whistleblower, entertaining though he is, needs to point the gang on the right path whenever the plot stops rolling, leading most of the investigating to being more about what he’s hiding, instead of what Acme is.
However, the lack of focus on a proper investigation allows “Coyote vs. Acme” to keep its focus steady on its emotional core and especially its humor. This is still a Looney Tunes movie after all, and the comic elements of the film are properly brought to life here. The stream of gags is consistently a good laugh, with its best bits coming from Acme’s attempts at retaliating against the lawsuit, even if nothing ever quite tops the Rube Goldberg machine of Wile E. Coyote’s opening failure.
I wish there was more physical interaction between the toons and humans, but what’s here is enough silly physical comedy, including a tritely placed, but still fun, chase sequence. There’s also an immensely hilarious Roadrunner spin on a seemingly generic needle drop I won’t spoil here.
We’re a long way away from a fully 2D stylization of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” though, and if there’s one truly major thing holding “Coyote vs. Acme” back, it’s that its animated toons only look good for about half the runtime. The film’s 3D cell-shaded animation does its best effort to imitate the classic Looney Tunes look, but that style often looks unpolished, and even occasionally ugly, especially during the brighter scenes.
But that is only around half of the runtime, the 3D animation style meshes a lot better in the film’s more carefully lit scenes and Wile E. Coyote is fortunately one of the consistently better-looking toons, at least when he isn’t bearing his off-putting teeth. The lightly used 2D touches for the exaggerated bits of the film are also greatly appreciated.
Ultimately, the film remains effective despite its blemished appearance, its emotional and stick-it-to-Acme core holding strong. It’s a delight that “Coyote vs. Acme” finally received a proper release years after Warner Bros. shelved it, but it’s a bigger delight that the film is actually very good.
