Coyote vs. Acme opens in cinemas on August 28. For most of the past three years there was no reason to expect that sentence. The film was finished in 2023 and then shelved by Warner Bros. as a tax write-down, joining a short and unhappy list of completed studio pictures that were never meant to be seen.
It is being released by Ketchup Entertainment, an independent distributor, and the details are on the film's official site: directed by Dave Green, starring Will Forte, Lana Condor, Tone Bell and John Cena, with tickets and showtimes already live.
The premise is a legal comedy with a cartoon plaintiff
Wile E. Coyote sues the ACME Corporation over decades of defective products. Will Forte plays Kevin Avery, the struggling lawyer who takes the case; John Cena plays Buddy Crane, ACME's counsel. The film mixes live action with animation, which is why the coyote can be deposed.
Dave Green previously directed Earth to Echo and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows. Neither suggests the tonal register the trailers are selling, which is closer to a courtroom procedural played straight around a character who cannot speak.
Why a finished film sat unreleased for three years
The shelving was a tax decision, not a creative one. Under the accounting Warner Bros. Discovery used in 2022 and 2023, writing off an unreleased film could be worth more than distributing it. Reported production costs for this one run around $70 million, and Ketchup Entertainment is reported to have paid roughly $50 million to acquire it — both figures come from trade reporting rather than a filing, and neither company has published them.
What made this case different from the others was that people who had seen the film said so publicly, loudly and repeatedly. Test-screening reactions leaked, cast and crew objected on the record, and the pressure lasted long enough that a buyer emerged. That is not how the write-down playbook is supposed to end.
It is opening into a crowded, unforgiving weekend
August 28 is the last weekend of the summer and it is not empty. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is still taking tens of millions a weekend a month into release, and the horror opener Insidious: Out of the Further is holding screens after a $25.3 million debut. An independent distributor releasing a family-adjacent comedy against that has a real screen-count problem, whatever the film is like.
The commercial outcome matters beyond this title. If a rescued write-off performs, the next shelved film has an argument for existing. If it does not, the studios get to say the market agreed with them.
For readers outside North America, Ketchup has not published a full international date list. Check local listings rather than assuming the August 28 date travels.
