Looney movie Hollywood couldn't kill
Beloved cartoon characters we grew up with have just the big screen with a splash.
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An unconventional leading man, who made his screen debut 77 years ago this month, is the star of one of the most talked-about Hollywood movies of 2026.
And the film itself has a backstory worthy of ... well, a Hollywood movie
Coyote vs. Acme, starring Wile E. Coyote – yes, the one from the Roadrunner cartoons we all grew up with – almost never made it to the screen.
The story begins on 17 September 1949, with the American release of the cinema short, Fast and Furry-ous.
Created by Chuck Jones and Michael Maltese, it set the simple template for decades of animated antics to come: a coyote is frustrated in his attempts to catch a roadrunner, usually because of various faulty products supplied to him by the Acme company.
That cartoon, and many others that followed, became a staple of afternoon and Saturday morning television, and then on cable TV and streaming services. Coyote and Roadrunner, along with dozens of other characters from the Looney Tunes universe, are famous across generations and around the world.
In 1990, The New Yorker magazine published a short story in which humourist, Ian Frazier, imagines Wile E. Coyote taking Acme to court over the serial failure of its products.
Thirty years later, that article inspired a movie that combines animation and live action, with Will Forte starring as a lawyer hired by Coyote and John Cena as the chief counsel for the Acme corporation.
The film, co-starring Lana Condor and Tone Bell and directed by Dave Green, is also populated by other famous Warner Bros cartoon characters, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn, and Tweety Pie.
Coyote v. Acme was supposed to be released in July 2023. However, Warner studio executives shelved it, deciding it was more valuable to them as a tax write-off than a theatrical release.
It’s a tactic they had previously used with Batgirl, which remains locked up in a vault and will probably never be seen by general audiences.
After a public outcry, and years of legal to-and-fro, Ketchup Entertainment bought the rights to Coyote vs. Acme, and it finally premiered in the United States in late August.
The movie made a respectable US$15 million (about A$21 million) at the box office on its opening weekend, had taken more than US$60 million before its Australian premiere last week, and scored an excellent 96% “fresh” rating on the Rotten Tomatoes review aggregation website.
Fun fact: Wile E. Coyote’s middle name is Ethelbert.
Image author Gage Skidmore. Image sourced from Wikimedia under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 licence. Image source can be found here.
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National Seniors Australia Ltd ABN 89 050 523 003, AR 282736, is an authorised representative of AWP Australia Pty Ltd, ABN 52 097 227 177, AFSL 245631, trading as Allianz Global Assistance (AGA), and acts as AGA's agent and not as your agent. nib Travel Services (Australia) Pty Ltd (nib), ABN 81 115 932 173, AFSL 308461 acts as third party administrator on behalf of AGA, managing claims, complaints, enquiries and sales. This is general advice only. Before you buy, you should consider whether the product is appropriate for you, the Product Disclosure Statement (PDS), Financial Services Guide (FSG) and Target Market Determination (TMD) is available from us. This insurance is underwritten by Pacific International Insurance Pty Ltd, ABN 83 169 311 193, AFSL 523921.
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