The Movie Warner Bros. Tried To Delete Is Now One Of The Highest-Rated Films Of 2026

In late 2023, Warner Bros. Discovery shelved a completed $70 million movie so the company could claim a $30 million tax write-off. The film was Coyote vs. Acme, a live-action animated hybrid about Wile E. Coyote suing the Acme Corporation for selling him defective products. The cast and crew were devastated. The film's editor Carsten Kurpanek told Rolling Stone he was "heartbroken." "As artists, we pour ourselves into these projects," he said. "This film was me for the last two and a half years. I even got a Wile E. Coyote tattoo on my right arm the week we delivered the movie, before I left London — to remind me of the challenges we face while we pursue our goals. This erasure hurts on a personal level." Fans launched a #ReleaseCoyoteVsAcme campaign loud enough that Warner Bros. eventually allowed rival distributor Ketchup Entertainment to buy the film for approximately $50 million. It opened in theaters August 28, 2026.

The reviews are in. Coyote vs. Acme has a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes — the highest-rated Looney Tunes movie in history and one of the top three wide releases of the year. The audience score sits at 94%, also an all-time franchise record, beating Space Jam. Critics called it "a genuinely funny, charming, and highly entertaining piece of blockbuster filmmaking." The anti-corporate message of a scrappy underdog fighting a giant corporation to be heard — baked into the script years before any of this happened — has taken on a meaning nobody planned. The coyote never gave up. Neither did the people who made this film. It turns out the audience was on their side the whole time.

Source:https://screenrant.com/coyote-vs-acme-rotten-tomatoes-audience-score-debut/