EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros‘ shelved Coyote vs Acme movie may have finally found a new home with the studio deep in sale negotiations, we can reveal.
Gareth West’s distributor-financier Ketchup Entertainment is negotiating an all-rights acquisition in the $50M range for the animated-live-action hybrid project. Ketchup last year rescued the same studio’s The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie.
The pact isn’t finalised and there’s still a chance it doesn’t make but it’s heading in the right direction. Should it get over the line, the film would get a theatrical release in 2026.
The deal would mark a significant and record outlay for Ketchup, whose previous releases have included Michael Keaton starrer Goodrich, comic book reboot Hellboy: The Crooked Man, Ben Affleck thriller Hypnotic, and Michel Franco’s Jessica Chastain drama Memory.
Watch on Deadline
Directed by David Green and written by May December scribe Samy Burch, as well as DC Studios co-boss James Gunn and Jeremy Slater, Coyote vs. Acme is based on the Looney Tunes characters and the New Yorker humor article “Coyote v. Acme” by Ian Frazier.
Will Forte, John Cena and Lana Condor star in the movie which follows Wile E. Coyote, who, after Acme products fail him one too many times in his dogged pursuit of the Roadrunner, decides to hire a billboard lawyer to sue the Acme Corporation. The case pits Wile E. and his lawyer (Forte) against the latter’s intimidating former boss (Cena), but a growing friendship between man and cartoon stokes their determination to win.
Despite test-screening well, the project became a high-profile casualty of WB cost-cutting two years ago and it has been sitting on the shelf for more than a year. The studio reportedly screened the movie to a string of buyers in early 2024 with a price tag of around $70M, which is how much the film is said to have cost. Studio sources claim to us that they didn’t get any offers at the time.
David Zaslav’s Warner Bros previously pulled the plug on high-profile pics such as Batgirl and the animated Scoob Holiday Haunt! In this instance, Ketchup has enacted a rescue operation. The same company also struck an all-rights deal last year for the similarly unwanted Warner Bros project The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie. Ketchup released the film theatrically this past weekend, taking in $3.1M off a strong screen count of 2,827.
Both The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie and Coyote vs Acme were intended for HBO Max, having been greenlit in December 2020 as a streaming release by the prior studio leadership. Ketchup negotiated the deal for The Day The Earth Blew Up with the WBTV Animation group.
LA-based Brit Gareth West launched Ketchup more than a decade ago to release movies but not a great deal has been reported about his background or how the company is financed. Partners at the firm include Artur Galstian, an entrepreneur and startup investor, and Vahan Yepremeyan, founder of Yepremyan Law Firm. Michael Mann’s Ferrari was another of the company’s investments.
Last fall, Ketchup partnered with Zero Gravity Management and Ozark producer Mark Williams on a TV division. The venture sits within Ketchup and will produce and acquire premium series, with Ketchup also serving as the U.S. distributor.
Warner Bros and Ketchup declined to comment.
The post Warner Bros Negotiating Big Sale Of Shelved ‘Coyote Vs. Acme’ Movie — The Dish appeared first on Deadline.
