A verdict seems to have been reached in the case of “Coyote vs. Acme,” the Warner Bros. Discovery courtroom comedy based on the popular Looney Tunes character.
The movie will likely never come out, lead actor Will Forte said in a statement on social media Thursday.
Originally slated for a theatrical release last July, the film was reportedly shelved in November last year, according to Deadline.
Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas alleged last year that the hiatus was part of a wider pattern of shelving films for tax breaks.
“The [Warner Bros. Discovery] tactic of scrapping fully made films for tax breaks is predatory and anti-competitive,” Castro wrote on social media in November.
Following fan and industry outrage over the film’s unceremonious fate, Netflix, Amazon and Paramount screened the film and “submitted handsome offers,” none of which were accepted, The Wrap reported earlier this month.
“When I first heard that our movie was getting ‘deleted,’ I hadn’t seen it yet,” Forte wrote, addressing the film’s cast and crew. “So I was thinking what everyone else must have been thinking: this thing must be a hunk of junk. But then I saw it. And it’s incredible.”
The SNL alum referenced the movie’s high score among test audiences, and he lamented the studio’s decision to bring the project to a premature end.
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“The people who paid for this movie can obviously do whatever they want with it,” Forte wrote, adding, “It doesn’t mean I have to like it … Or agree with it.”
“Please know that all the years and years of hard work, dedication and love that you put into this movie shows in every frame,” he concluded.
Based on a satirical 1990 New Yorker article by Ian Frazier, the film stars Forte and John Cena alongside the animated Wile E. Coyote, who is suing the Acme Corporation over oft-backfiring products with which Coyote attempted to capture the Road Runner in the classic Looney Tunes cartoons.
“Mr. Coyote states that on occasions too numerous to list in this document he has suffered mishaps with explosives purchased of Defendant,” reads the humor piece, written in the style of a court docket.
This is the third time Warner Bros. Discovery has axed a film in its final stages, with “Scoob! Holiday Haunt” and “Batgirl” being trimmed off the studio’s balance sheet in 2022.
“As the Justice Department and @FTC revise their antitrust guidelines they should review this conduct,” Castro wrote in his November social media post. “As someone remarked, it’s like burning down a building for the insurance money.”
