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With Coyote vs. Acme FINALLY set to hit movie theaters later this month, John Cena spoke with Entertainment Weekly about the film, including thoughts on Warner Bros. Discovery's original intention to shelve and delete the film from ever being seen.
“I am hired by an employer to do a task, and it’s my job to prepare as much as I can, be early, be coachable, be passionate, and be reliable,” Cena said. “I do that and hope for the best. Those expectations are beyond my control, so it doesn’t make me view the business any differently. Keep in mind, it is the movie business. Still, that doesn’t mean he necessarily agrees with those decisions. “Sometimes, business decisions are things that we don’t see through the same lens,” he says. “Of course, I want my work seen by an audience. That’s how I can accept both the positive and the negative and get better as a performer. But I don’t own my performance. I’m contracted to do a job, and the person who owns it gets to decide what happens with it.”
The Looney Tunes film Coyote vs. Acme will receive a theatrical release at the end of the month.
The plot of the film - "After decades of being blown to bits by bombs, demolished by dynamite, mangled by magnets, battered by boulders, trampled by trains, tricked by tunnels, sprung by springs, steamrolled by steamrollers, maligned by misfires, bedeviled by bungees, rattled by rockets, backstabbed by bat suits, rocked by rocket skates, upended by unicycles, quaked by quake pills, rubberized by rogue bands, and hurled headlong off every cliff in the Southwest, Wile E. Coyote (Genius) finally fights back. Teaming up with billboard accident lawyer Kevin Avery (Will Forte), he takes on slick corporate counsel Buddy Crane (John Cena) and ACME, Inc., the profit-obsessed conglomerate behind every one of the Coyote’s chaotic catastrophes"
WBD sold the film to Ketchup Entertainment for $50 million in March 2025. Ketchup purchased the distribution for the Daffy Duck and Porky Pig animated theatrical film The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie (which was a GREAT film).
In November 2023, The Hollywood Reporter reported that the film had been canceled by Warner Bros Discovery and would not be released despite filming having been completed on the live action-CGI film. Cena was to play Coyote's former boss at Acme.
Actor Will Forte, who stars alongside Cena in the film, blasted WBD for shelving the completed project. “My thoughts were that it’s f--king bullsh--,” Forte told MovieWeb. “It is such a delightful movie. It deserves so much better than it got. I can’t tell you possibly why the decision was made to not release it. But it makes my blood boil. Thank you for asking me about it because I like talking about the movie because I don’t want people to forget what [Warner Bros.] did to this. I appreciate them letting us make it, but don’t let us make this thing that we fall in love with and then not show it. I would understand if the thing sucked, but it’s really good. Maybe somehow we get to see it at some point. I hope people do. I was really proud of it.”
WBD initially decided not to release the film in order to take a big tax break. They had made similar decisions on a Scooby Doo animated film that was finished titled Holiday Haunt as well as most famously, a Batgirl live action film film that was to have featured Michael Keaton reprising his role as Batman, which was in post-production at the time the film was shut down, taken out of the hands of the filmmakers, was never completed and most likely will never be seen.
“With the re-launch of Warner Bros. Pictures Animation in June, the studio has shifted its global strategy to focus on theatrical releases,” a WB Motion Picture Group spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement in 2023 “With this new direction, we have made the difficult decision not to move forward with Coyote vs Acme. We have tremendous respect for the filmmakers, casts, and crew, and are grateful for their contributions to the film.”
After great backlash to the Coyote being shelved, Deadline Hollywood reported in December 2023 that Netflix and Paramount made formal bids for the hybrid live-action animated comedy starring John Cena. Paramount's proposal would feature a 2024 theatrical release along with streaming. Deadline sources stated at the time that Warner Bros. Discovery wants "$70 million and then some" which would cover the initial tax write-off for Warner Bros. Discovery wanted. Reportedly, Amazon was also mulling over putting in a bid, while Apple and Sony who had also seen the film, were not.
In 2023, the film's Director Dave Green wrote on his social media, "For three years, I was lucky enough to make a movie about Wile E. Coyote, the most persistent, passionate, and resilient character of all time. I was surrounded by a brilliant team, who poured their souls into this project for years. We were all determined to honor the legacies of these historic characters and actually get them right. Along the ride, we were embraced by test audiences who rewarded us with fantastic scores. I am beyond proud of the final product, and beyond devastated by WB's decision. But in the spirit of Wile E. Coyote, resilience and persistence win the day."
The Wrap later reported that WBD just wants to "close the book" on the film and take the tax break.
WBD head David Zaslav was reported at the time to have never actually watched the film and according to the report, was looking to "delete the film."
Thankfully, in the end, that was not the case and the film was salvaged by Ketchup. It will be released theatrically this August in several formats, including, appropriately for the characters, 4DX.
Production took place in 2022 in New Mexico.
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