Meep meep.
It seems David Zaslav has claimed another. Warner Bros. has written off the completed Coyote vs. Acme.
The film, which featured a CG/live-action hybrid and featured John Cena as the antagonist, had finished principal photography in 2022. The film was, essentially in a complete state this year, but missed its original June 2023 launch. As it was meant as a HBO Max original, the company cites a focus on “theatrical releases” as the reason for its termination in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.
With the re-launch of Warner Bros. Pictures Animation in June, the studio has shifted its global strategy to focus on theatrical releases. With this new direction, we have made the difficult decision not to move forward with Coyote vs Acme. We have tremendous respect for the filmmakers, casts, and crew, and are grateful for their contributions to the film.
The film, based on a 1990 Ian Frazier New Yorker article of the same name, had he infamous Coyote from the Road Runner shorts bringing the Acme company to task in court for their uh… ineffectual gadgets.
Coyote vs. Acme is far from the first film Warner Bros. has written off for tax reasons since the merger with Discovery. Batgirl was rather famously done in by the company at a similar state of completion, as well as the Scoob! sequel Scoob! Holiday Haunt. This all plays into an ever-worsening horizon for Warner’s streaming platform, where there isn’t enough quality content to make that subscription worth it, with that subscription increasing in price every few months/year.
If there’s one small silver lining to this, it’s that at least this time the people responsible for making Coyote vs. Acme were actually notified of the company’s decision ahead of time, as opposed to the many, many other written off projects, films, and series that Warner Bros. Discovery has cast off or otherwise removed from a legally viewable state.The whole thing is, however, especially surprising as the film was produced by James Gunn. You know, their current head of DC film development? Even he couldn’t stop this.
Source: IGN
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