Coyote vs. Acme passed $100 million worldwide, three years after Warner Bros. wrote it off for a tax break
A studio decided this film was worth more unreleased than released, and wrote it off accordingly. The distributor that bought it afterwards has just watched the ninth digit tick over, and the campaign that got it there was built on the humiliation rather than around it.
Warner Bros. finished Coyote vs. Acme in 2022, decided in 2023 that it would never be released, and took a $30 million write-down on a $70 million production. As of this weekend the film has passed $100 million worldwide, and it did it for a distributor most of the audience had never heard of.
Ketchup Entertainment bought global rights for $50 million and sold off the foreign territories. The running total sits at roughly $54.7 million in the United States and Canada and $44.3 million from 46 markets abroad. For scale, Warner Bros.' own summer superhero release Supergirl took $126 million internationally on a reported $186 million budget.
What the campaign actually sold
The marketing did not try to hide the history. It was built on it. Ketchup brought in 42West for publicity and Maximum Effort — the marketing arm of Ryan Reynolds' production company — after a Comic-Con panel in July 2025 where the release date was announced to the room. The line they settled on was the whole pitch: the movie ACME didn't want you to see.
"They saw the opportunity to lean into Wile E. Coyote as the ultimate David taking on Goliath, while tapping into the existing fan base and the broader cultural conversation in smart, unexpected ways," said Gareth West, CEO of Ketchup Entertainment.
The premiere ran on the same logic. It was held at the Directors Village in Westwood, the Coyote walked the red carpet himself, and he led the UCLA marching band into the auditorium, where they played before the filmmakers introduced the picture.
"The audience spoke up and spoke loudly for the Coyote. And we're so grateful they did," said director Dave Green.
The company that keeps buying what studios throw away
This is not Ketchup's first rescue. It also picked up The Day the Earth Blew Up, the fully animated Looney Tunes feature Warner Bros. had likewise decided against. Two Looney Tunes films, both abandoned by the studio that owns the characters, both released by an outside buyer.
- The film comes from a 1990 Ian Frazier short story published in The New Yorker — a coyote's legal brief against a mail-order company.
- Will Forte, John Cena and Lana Condor star alongside the animated Coyote.
- It was shelved in 2023 in the same wave that killed Batgirl and Scoob! Holiday Haunt.
- It has already passed Ridley Scott's The Dog Stars at $38 million worldwide and is within reach of Masters of the Universe at $114 million.
- Digital release lands on 29 September, with physical media and streaming to follow.
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The part that is still open
There is enough animation in the film for it to qualify for the Best Animated Feature category, and a campaign there is being discussed. That would put Warner Bros. in the position of watching a film it valued at zero compete for an Oscar under someone else's banner.
Nobody at Warner Bros. has commented on the number. The write-down was taken years ago and is closed on the books, which is the entire point of a write-down, and the studio gets nothing from the hundred million.
Read more: Forgotten Island reviews hit 100% on Rotten Tomatoes: DreamWorks' release date lands this week — and it isn’t a sequel to anything
