Tag: Coyote vs. Acme

The slow death of Coyote vs. Acme is sending Hollywood into an era of disposable content

Coyote vs. Acme’s possible cancellation ushers in the era of disposable entertainment.

Of all the problems going on in the entertainment industry, the possibility of Warner Bros. Discovery deleting Coyote vs. Acme strikes as one of its most foreboding in some time.

The fully completed film is nearing the phantom zone of disappearing from existence solely for a tax bump, and the decision-making behind the story is even more worrisome and bleak than it already looks on its face.

Take it from Philip Alberstat, a former agent for WME now at M&A advisory firm Embarc Advisors, who told Indiewire:

“It’s not very popular, but at the end of the day, it’s driven by finance. It’s not art, it’s just business.”

Beyond the cruelty of erasing years of hard work from dedicated artists for a tax break, the Coyote vs. Acme situation — like the Batgirl and Scooby-Doo situations before it — hints to a budding anti-art industry mentality that is well into the process of viewing its products as disposable.

If this is the direction of what constitutes as good business, what does that mean for the art?

It’s not just Coyote vs. Acme‘s ignoble treatment that proves worrisome. Disney has made controversial decisions by pulling some streaming-exclusive movies and television shows from its streaming services for alternate (and occasionally nonexistent) futures.

The big-budget Willow sequel series is virtually nowhere to be found after being pulled from Disney+ last year, causing star Warwick Davis to slam the company for such an unfathomable move.

It’s heightening a reality where studios feel emboldened to throw away largely finished products for whatever reasons they feel make that disposal “good business.”

Just listen to Final Space creator Olan Rogers recently cope with the fact that people might not be able to watch his three-season animated series any longer after it got removed from circulation by Warner Bros. Discovery last fall.

The show has been scattered about since then rather than returned to streaming where it could be watched and enjoyed despite its cancellation. Most of the show is fully inaccessible through traditional venues at present.

These moves bizarrely make online piracy occasionally the surest way to find a film or television show that has been removed by the company that released it. Think about that: online piracy might be the best tool for preserving discarded streaming titles right now.

Physical media is also becoming less and less of a certainty. Just consider that the breakout horror hit Barbarian, released in theaters in 2022 to solid business and great reviews, still hasn’t gotten a physical release. Neither have movies like last summer’s comedy Bottoms or 2022’s acclaimed dark dramedy On the Count of Three (at least stateside). Best Buy will reportedly stop selling physical media altogether this year.

Movies aren’t even guaranteed to live a life on home video nowadays.

If a movie or television show gets pulled from a streaming service, doesn’t become available for digital purchase and has no physical copy to back it up, where does it go?

These are uneasy blips on a troubling radar for media that were largely unthinkable even 10 years ago. They’re emerging signs of an industry that is starting to view the art it creates as occasionally disposable entertainment —content unworthy of preservation or even the dignity of a release if business suggests it’s somehow worth more in the trash can than it is in the public.

Coyote vs. Acme‘s possible fate feels grossly abhorrent, deliriously unethical and really bad for business in public perception, but it is legal and possibly lucrative. The American tax system rewards this new, troubling trend.

Coyote vs. Acme probably won’t be the last completed film or television production that could be demolished for a tax break, and that should give everyone aggressive pause and a real pit in the stomach as we approach this destructive new era of film and television. One where very few productions are guaranteed to last.

It’s an era that will not sustain itself long-term.

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Coyote vs. Acme potentially being shelved has angered fans once again

Public outcry sparked anew over Coyote vs. Acme potentially still being canceled.

It’s fascinating that a Looney Tunes movie has turned into one of the biggest entertainment stories as of late, but that’s where Coyote vs. Acme has found itself after months of controversy over its potentially scrapped release.

After news broke of Warner Bros. Discovery scrapping the finished film for a tax write-off and branding decision in November 2023, public outcry caused the studio to reverse its decision and allow the film’s creatives to shop it around to other distributors for a potential sale.

After all, it’s incredibly rare for a studio to completely shelve a completed film.

Inspired by the humorous New Yorker piece, the John Cena-led Looney Tunes, produced by James Gunn, project sees Wile E. Coyote suing the Acme Corporation after years of failed attempts at catching the Road Runner.

Will Forte and Lana Condor co-star in the film directed by Dave Green (Earth to Echo) and written by recent Oscar nominee Samy Burch (May December).

At word of its initial cancellation, Green expressed his hope the film would still see the light of day.

“I am beyond proud of the final product, and beyond devastated by WB’s decision,” he said. “But in the spirit of Wile E. Coyote, resilience and persistence win the day.”

However, some time has passed, and The Wrap shared on Friday that the film still may wind up being shelved as Warner Bros. Discovery is alleged of not budging off its selling price despite multiple reported offers from other studios like Amazon and Paramount.

Deadline added that the film’s fate is not fully sealed and that a sale could hypothetically still happen, but that it’s very possible Coyote vs. Acme could go the way of previously scrapped Warner Bros. Discovery films like Batgirl and Scoob! Holiday Haunt.

However, the public outcry reignited once The Wrap‘s explosive report came out, with plenty of notable creatives and movie fans calling on Warner Bros. Discovery to do the right thing and make sure Coyote vs. Acme reaches audiences one day rather than disappearing into the void of corporate accounting.

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By shelving ‘Coyote vs. Acme’, Warner Bros. Discovery continues to show its artistic untrustworthiness

You just cannot trust Warner Bros. to actually release a movie it’s made anymore.

For the third time since taking over Warner Bros., CEO David Zaslav has killed a movie.

Per Deadline, the studio has completely shelved a finished film in the upcoming Looney Tunes-inspired comedy Coyote vs. Acme, which starred notable faces like John Cena, Will Forte and Lana Condor. It’s reportedly because the studio, go with us here, wants to write the project off on taxes to save $30 million on the film’s $70 million budget.

Coyote vs. Acme joins the shelved Batgirl adaptation and the animated spinoff Scoob Holiday Haunt! as recent Warner Bros. projects that have gotten completely scrapped despite being largely completed for alleged tax incentives.

Here’s the statement from WB, per Deadline: “With the re-launch of Warner Bros. Pictures Animation in June, the studio has shifted its global strategy to focus on theatrical releases. 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.”

Shelving Batgirl had the weak excuses of a full DC universe reset and allegations of poor test scores, which Deadline, shared did not befall Coyote vs. Acme as the film reportedly tested well for audiences. Making it even stranger is the fact that new DC co-head James Gunn both produced and received a story credit on the now-axed Looney Tunes project.

Gunn’s DC co-head Peter Safrin defended the move to put the largely completed Batgirl away in the vault, but we can’t imagine either of them would be thrilled with shelving a completed film Gunn worked on.

Now, a third Warner Bros. film will never see the light of day, allegedly so Warner Bros. Discovery can save a little bit on taxes.

If you think this is good for movies or art, allow me to sell you some pristine beachfront property in the tippity top of the North Pole.

Zaslav’s crude cost-cutting measures are absolutely abysmal for one of the legacy film studios and the medium in general. Make no mistake; even absolute film disasters just don’t get thrown away. The list of historically shelved films is sparse for a reason.

Warner Bros. has released plenty of big-budget stinkers in the past; remember, this is the studio that released 1999’s Wild Wild West.

Unless a film is genuinely too troubled to be released (see Jerry Lewis’ ill-fated Holocaust drama The Day the Clown Cried, which may still see the light of day eventually) or involved an individual surrounded by controversy (see Kevin Spacey’s unreleased Netflix Gore Vidal biopic), studios usually take one on the chin and just put a movie out there because of the financial investment and out of respect to the hard-working artists.

The precedent Zaslav and WB Discovery are setting has literally never been done in the history of movies. Completed films based on intellectual properties just don’t get canned. Five years ago, you would’ve bowled over in laughter if you were told a film set in the Batman universe would never make it to audiences, or that a film featuring the studio’s legacy Looney Tunes characters would get trashed for a tax credit.

Now, it’s becoming a genuine practice at one of the biggest studios in Hollywood, and that is absolutely horrible for the future of the industry. There is just no good that comes from this outside of an alleged momentary respite on WB Discovery’s financial documents.

Killing a movie that is already completed feels like the cardinal sin a corporation can commit against an artist. Even if the film isn’t any good, a bond of trust is formed between a distributor and an artist that has historically stipulated that the film will at least get released.

Films have gotten buried in the past with limited marketing campaigns and no theatrical releases, but the projects most always make it to the audience. It’s common (if a bit impossible) to chop down a tree in the middle of the woods and try to hush the sound, but it’s extremely stupid to just chop one single tree down in a giant forest to grow a small patch of grass in its place.

We’re entering a very delicate environment where one of the largest film studios in the world just cannot be trusted to release a movie it greenlights. After the 2020 HBO Max fiasco that saw WB foolishly release its entire 2021 theatrical slate in theaters and on streaming simultaneously, you would’ve thought the studio wouldn’t want to do more to alienate artists after it ran off one of the few tentpole filmmakers working in Christopher Nolan.

Nolan apparently is willing to come back WB, but moves like this might give him serious pause to stay with Universal for the time being. While it would seem genuinely unfathomable for the studio to shelve a film from a major director like Nolan, what in the past year or so would completely dismiss that concern outright?

Unless it’s the literal Barbie sequel, it does not seem like any film that Warner Bros. makes while Zaslav runs the company is guaranteed a release if tax incentives come into play. It makes the studio wholly untrustworthy with artists who actually want audiences to see their films, lest they wind up in the dumpster for an alleged quick save in the tax book.

Between this horrible trend, the TCM controversy and Max pulling its own films and television shows off the service, it’s looking dour for a company that used to shine a golden light for the entertainment industry.

Warner Bros. cannot be trusted as a film and television company any longer with this current leadership as it is. Especially as long as they keep axing completed films, how can anyone take this studio seriously as actually caring about the mediums it claims to support?

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