Ladies, gentlemen, and everyone part of that technicolor rainbow, we did it. It took us almost three years, but we finally managed to do it. This summer, Coyote vs. ACME will see the light of day, and now we have our first trailer for it!
Somebody pinch me to make sure I’m not dreaming!
How We Got Here
If you’ve been following me along on The Game of Nerds for the past four years, you’ll know of my utter disdain for David Zaslav and his leadership of Warner Bros Discovery. Ever since the two companies merged, they’ve managed to anger Hollywood and long-time fans. HBO Max, touted as a mecca for the cartoons that made Warner Bros great, was gutted. Shows were cancelled to the point they couldn’t be watched through legal means. Films that were almost completed were shelved to get tax money. But in November 2023, that disdain turned into full-blown hatred with the news that Warner Bros tried to shelve Coyote vs. ACME.
The short version if you haven’t kept up with my updates on it: Wile E. Coyote decides to sue the ACME Corporation for all the defective products they’ve given him. Will Forte is playing his lawyer, and John Cena is the lawyer for the ACME Corporation. Test audiences and people in Hollywood all loved the movie, and it looked set to make a good profit in theaters. But it got shelved anyway, and everyone, and I say everyone, in the entertainment business was outraged. People started protesting it online; Bugs Bunny’s own voice actor spoke out in support of it; someone even dressed as Wile E. Coyote and protested outside Warner Bros actual studio lot.
At any rate, it’s took several years and a few false starts, but eventually, Warner Bros gave the distribution rights for Coyote vs. ACME to Ketchup Entertainment, AKA the company that released The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie. The film had a victory lap at Comic-Con last year, and we now have an official release date for August 28th, 2026. And as of a few days ago, we have our first trailer. It’s everything that we could want from the movie, and then some.
The Coyote vs ACME trailer in Full
The trailer opens up in the desert as we see Wile E. Coyote go about his attempts to catch the Road Runner. Predictably, his ACME products blow up, leaving him battered and bruised as he returns to his cave. That’s when he sees an ad for a lawyer named Kevin Avery, played by Will Forte, promising justice for anyone who’s been wronged by ACME. Wile is thusly inspired to take the infamous company to court, but there’s three problems. The first being that Avery has always settled for settling cases out of court. The second is that they’re going up against one of the biggest corporations in the world. Lastly, this is Wile E. Coyote, an agent of chaos incarnate.
Speaking of chaos, the trailer keeps true to its roots by showing off all the slapstick we’ve come to expect from the Looney Tunes, all to the tune of 1812 Overture, AKA the national anthem of anarchy (so sayeth V.) The fusion of animation and live-action is very impressive, to say the least. I’ve always been a fan of these kinds of hybrid works, and even in the few parts where I don’t think it works (rotoscoping Foghorn Leghorn), I still think it looks amazing.
Full Disclosure: Someone Leaked the Plot Years Ago
Now, as for what is revealed about the plot, not much can be discerned in between all the chaos taking place. It should be noted, though, that back in 2024, Collider posted an article saying that someone had leaked the entire plot of the film. I’ve never known if the leaks were legitimate, but there were a few scenes in the trailer that seem to confirm it as such. If that’s the case, then I think we are going to be in for a very chaotic, yet emotional, time come August. And you can bet that I will be there on opening night with bells on.
As the release date comes closer, I will be doing my best to keep up with news about Coyote vs ACME. I have been covering it for so long, and I intend to see it through to the end. Who knows: maybe this entire story will get made into a book!
