The Movie Warner Bros. Tried to Delete Is Officially Home: 'Coyote vs. Acme' Hits Digital

The most famous shelved movie in recent Hollywood history is officially a home video. Coyote vs. Acme, the live-action/animated Looney Tunes comedy that Warner Bros. once planned to turn into a tax write-off, is now available to rent or buy on digital platforms — the final chapter in one of the wildest rescue stories the industry has ever seen.

The film arrived on digital September 29, priced at $24.99 to purchase and $19.99 to rent on Prime Video, Apple TV and other storefronts. It caps a theatrical run that began August 28 through Ketchup Entertainment, the scrappy distributor that bought the film after Warner Bros. decided not to release it. Against all odds, the movie became a bona fide hit, crossing $100 million at the worldwide box office — the kind of result that makes the original decision to shelve it look stranger by the week.

The Lawsuit That Mirrored Real Life

The premise was always deliciously meta. Directed by Dave Green, the film follows Wile E. Coyote as he hires struggling billboard lawyer Kevin Avery, played by Will Forte, to sue the Acme Corporation over decades of catastrophically defective products — every exploding gadget that ever blew up in his face in pursuit of the Road Runner. John Cena plays the slick corporate attorney Buddy Crane, with Lana Condor as Kevin's niece and intern Paige. Eric Bauza voices Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Foghorn Leghorn, Tweety and half the Looney Tunes bench.

The screenplay, written by Oscar nominee Samy Burch and inspired by an Ian Frazier New Yorker piece, plays like a David-vs.-Goliath legal picture crossed with a Who Framed Roger Rabbit-style cartoon-in-the-real-world story. It argues, in the friendliest possible way, that monopolistic corporations should not be trusted — which, as plenty of commentators noted, may have been part of why the studio that made it did not want the world to see it.

From Write-Off to Win

The film's journey to screens is the stuff of industry legend. After Warner Bros. finished the film and shelved it, public outcry — from filmmakers, animators and fans — helped push it back into the marketplace, where Ketchup Entertainment picked it up. That backstory became part of the film's identity; the trailer cheekily billed it as the film Acme doesn't want you to see, and audiences showed up partly to participate in the happy ending.

The better news is what happens now. Instead of becoming a permanently inaccessible accounting maneuver, Coyote vs. Acme gets to have an ordinary post-theatrical life — the kind of long, slow afterlife on digital and physical shelves that family films used to count on. For a movie about a coyote who refuses to stop filing his case no matter how many anvils drop on his head, persistence paying off feels like exactly the right ending.