Coyote vs Acme not only delivers one of the best animated-live-action hybrid movies ever made, but a heady dose of misty-eyed optimism amid troubling times. You only have to take a quick look at social media or overbearing news cycles to realise this type of uplifting narrative wouldn’t go amiss right now – and we’ll take it wherever we can find it. Even in the form of a super-smart animated canine getting blown to smithereens while taking on the establishment.

"This movie is about a hopeful optimist," smiles Dave Green, director of the movie Warner Bros Discovery really didn’t want you to see, in an exclusive interview with Radio Times. "Wile E Coyote wakes up and expects that he’ll be eating the Road Runner by the end of the day. That’s his ‘want’ – and it’s very optimistic.

"As much as this big corporation Acme tries to crush him, there’s really no corporation that can take away his sense of hope and needing to try. That’s the story this movie has lived," he adds, pointing to its wild off-screen narrative. "At its core, it’s a story about hope and trying."

Coyote vs Acme couldn’t be a better example of the power of staying positive. It takes its cues from a 1990 article published in The New Yorker Magazine that envisioned what might happen if Looney Tunes' favourite fall-guy took the organisation responsible for selling him dodgy, frequently back-firing goods to court.

Green, screenwriter Samy Burch and producer James Gunn grabbed that idea and ran with it, pairing Wile E Coyote with downbeat billboard lawyer Kevin (Will Forte) and sticking the duo in a courtroom tussle with Acme’s suited-and-booted lawyer Buddy (John Cena) and intimidating head honcho, played here by Foghorn Leghorn.

The film was shot in 2022 but shelved indefinitely a year later as a supposed tax write-off under Warner Bros Discovery’s newly-appointed boss David Zaslav. Needless to say, the move went down harder than an Acme anvil. No one was happy, not least of all Looney Tunes fans, who quickly – and very vocally – petitioned for its release.

After years of waiting, Coyote vs Acme was eventually picked up by distributor Ketchup Entertainment in early 2025 and aired to eager San Diego Comic-Con fans a year later. It was a resounding hit, with a wider theatrical release quickly scheduled.

"The moment definitely surprised me," admits Green, remembering when he first heard about his movie’s sudden resurrection. "I’d honestly say I was caught by surprise when I heard the movie was being purchased. I was totally overjoyed – but I’d be lying if I said I saw that coming.

"We really never gave up hope," he’s quick to add, detailing the off-screen battle that he and his stars fought in an attempt to get their movie seen. "As a team, we always felt we’d gotten away with making something we loved that also felt like an impossibility."

That term "getting away with it" couldn’t be more apt. "The idea of this movie alone – Wile E Coyote takes Acme to court – is such an impossible idea," continues Green. “To think it would actually make it through the script process, into a draft and then something we get to shoot, animate and finish... by the time we were done, we all felt like we’d gotten away with this thing."

It’s true. Coyote vs Acme an odd story – part-mystery-thriller, part-courtroom drama, part-looney comedy and more than a little reminiscent of Robert Zemeckis’s 1988 groundbreaker Who Framed Roger Rabbit. While Green’s movie undoubtedly exists thanks to Roger, it also takes its genre-mashing weirdness to new and fun places, with iconic Looney Tunes faces playing stand-alone roles similar to what you’d expect from a Muppet movie. It’s the type of strange storytelling you rarely see in big studio releases these days – and all the better for it.

"It’s the kind of movie that I would’ve loved when I was a kid. The kind of movie that, obviously, lives in the shadow of a movie like Who Framed Roger Rabbit but it hopefully evokes the same energies that my favourite movies were evoking when I was a kid," suggests Green. "Those movies were always dark, funny, sophisticated and for adults and kids, in a shared way."

To pull off this trick, Green looked to some unlikely inspirations for a film that’s primarily about wise-cracking rabbits, wacky ducks and pants-less pigs. "Weirdly, my primary source of inspiration was The Insider because it’s one of my favourite movies," reveals Green, sharing his love of Michael Mann’s 1999 whistleblower thriller that exposed the terrors of the tobacco industry.

"We looked at a lot of courtroom thrillers and dramas. A Few Good Men, Erin Brockovich, The Verdict... all these classic courtroom thrillers that were built around getting the audience to care. Getting the audience to truly invest in Wile E’s story and his pain was critical."

The investment paid off. Despite its zany humour, abundant Easter eggs and carefully considered handling of characters that are bonafide cartoon royalty, don’t be surprised if you find some animated hands pulling at your heart strings before Coyote vs Acme is over.

"Our movie really begins after the fade out of Wile E chasing the Road Runner all day. Day becomes night, he crawls out of the deep crater he’s been blown up into, walks back to his cave and the audience sees something they haven’t seen before: what this character does when he’s at the end of his rope," says Green.

"Wile E is a great symbol of passion and persistence, want and drive and a great model of hope – but he’s still conniving, mischievous and duplicitous. We really wanted to do our very best to treat him like a shaded character."

With a current Rotten Tomatoes score of 95% – and a five-star review from – Green’s hard work, persistence and unwavering positivity has led to a very happy ending... but it wasn’t the only movie to be shelved by Warner Bros Discovery back in 2022. Does the filmmaker believe that the journey Coyote vs Acme has endured could provide hope to the idea that the Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah-helmed Batgirl movie may finally see the light of day too?

"I hope so," offers Green. "I think what’s really happened here is that the audience spoke up. They spoke out so loudly against a major corporation and they won – truly. I think what we’re learning is that the voice of the audience is powerful and they have a vote in what happens to movies and the type of movies that get made and released.

"I absolutely hope this shakes something loose. I hope this kind of thing never happens to another movie and that it also helps to rescue movies that this has happened to. It would only be fair and just."

Coyote vs Acme is out now in UK cinemas.

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