Coyote vs. Acme Passes Its Production Budget at the Box Office
The little movie that could is still going.
Coyote vs. Acme, a movie that was originally cancelled, has surpassed its production budget and then some going into its fourth weekend at the U.S. box office. The film, which cost $75 million to make, is currently sitting at $82 million and counting, and it’s about to enter a number of smaller international markets.
In November 2023, Warner Bros. — who produced the film and own the Looney Tunes intellectual property that underlies it — opted not to release it theatrically, shelving Coyote vs. Acme in exchange for a $30 million tax write-down. The move came shortly after Warner Bros.’ acquisition by Discovery, whose CEO David Zaslav shifted production priorities and cancelled a number of projects started under the previous management regime.
While movies like Scoob!: Holiday Haunt and Batgirl were “mostly complete,” Coyote vs. Acme was functionally ready for release at the time, and had already had a number of test screenings that went incredibly well. This created a groundswell of demand for the film’s release, and Warner Bros. initially opened up the bidding to competitors, only to reject all offers at the time.
Supposedly, Netflix, Amazon, and Paramount were all told in 2023 that they would have to pay the cost of the film’s production in order to get it. Ultimately, Ketchup Entertainment acquired the rights in 2025 for a reported $50 million. Ketchup, the studio behind Ferrari and Hellboy: The Crooked Man, also previously bought the distribution rights to The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, which released in 2024.
If you look to Box Office Mojo, a leading website for tracking box office data, it will tell you that Coyote vs. Acme is still designated as an “underperformer,” which is why you should never trust anyone who uses a strict formula for these kinds of things.
Typical Hollywood thinking suggests that you need to earn back between two and three times your budget in order to be considered profitable. That “extra” money accounts for the cut of the gross taken by movie theaters as well as the cost of promoting the film. While it’s unlikely Coyote vs. Acme will make it to the $150 million mark that would do that for Warner Bros., the notion of earning at least $100 million certainly is not off the table at this point.
Ketchup also gets something out of it that Warners never could: they built a narrative that they saved a well-received film based on a beloved IP from oblivion. The success of Coyote vs. Acme, which has a Rotten Tomatoes score in the 90s and has now earned more money in theaters than any Looney Tunes movie without “Space Jam” in the title, has given the small studio a publicity boon that money alone can’t buy.
Of course, this also raises the stakes for Ketchup somewhat. Remember when Netflix saved Arrested Development, and then spent a bunch of years being petitioned to save every cult favorite show ever cancelled? A version of that is likely to happen here.
Coyote vs. Acme star Eric Bauza is already throwing his social media voice behind a fan campaign to revive the cancelled Bye Bye Bunny, a Bugs Bunny musical that was shut down mid-production. But completing an animated feature film is a lot different than buying a completed one and putting it in theaters. The same goes for Batgirl (although early reports suggested that Scoob!: Holiday Haunt is actually completed).
