If the embed vanishes in a puff of dust, the final trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbTCShLHqj0
Wile E. Coyote has spent more than seventy years being flattened, blown up and dropped off cliffs, so it is only fair that something finally lands the right way up. Coyote vs. Acme, the Looney Tunes film that Warner Bros. Discovery once decided was worth more to it as a tax write-off than as entertainment, has been ruled eligible for Best Animated Feature at the 2027 Oscars, according to awards site Gold Derby. The Academy’s rule says at least 75% of a film’s running time must be animated, and after what was described as further review, a film that is half Will Forte and half falling coyote has scraped through.
The film’s survival story is almost as daft as one of Wile E.’s plans. Dave Green’s comedy, written by Samy Burch from a story she developed with James Gunn and Jeremy Slater, was loosely inspired by Ian Frazier’s 1990 New Yorker piece imagining the Coyote suing the Acme Corporation over its faulty products. Forte plays the billboard lawyer who takes the case, and John Cena plays the man on the other side. The film was finished, then pulled from the 2023 schedule, then shelved in November 2023 so Warner Bros. Discovery could take a write-off reported at about $30 million. After a public outcry, the studio let it be shopped around, turned down offers, and finally sold it to Ketchup Entertainment for a reported $50 million. It opened here on 21st August and in the US a week later, and has taken more than $100 million worldwide. Acme couldn’t have done it better.
If it is nominated, it would be the first Looney Tunes film ever to make the category, and only the second live-action and animation hybrid after Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. It would be strong competition. Laika’s Wildwood and Pixar’s Toy Story 5 are expected to be among the front-runners. Pedants will point out that Who Framed Roger Rabbit never got the chance, because the Animated Feature award didn’t exist until 2002, and Bugs Bunny’s only Oscar statue came for the 1958 short Knighty Knight Bugs. That means the rabbit is one up on the coyote, which is how the coyote likes it.
There is a sad footnote. Eric Bauza, who voiced Bugs, Daffy, Porky and most of the Looney Tunes cast in the film, died suddenly at the weekend, aged 46. If Coyote vs. Acme does get a nomination in January, it will be his film’s big moment and, in a way, his. It would be a nice change for something with the Acme logo on it to work as advertised.
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