Reviews

Coyote vs. Acme Review: Wile E. Coyote Finally Gets His Day in Court

After years of controversy, fan campaigns and an attempted shelving, Wile E. Coyote finally gets his movie, and somehow it was worth the wait.

By Mark Gold
Founder, KazooWatch

Published September 4, 2026

Updated September 4, 2026

Coyote vs. Acme promotional still.

**Credit:** TMDB / promotional artwork
Promotional artwork
themoviedb.org

A few years ago, Coyote vs. Acme was basically thrown in the trash.

Warner Bros. had completed the film, tested it with audiences, and then decided not to release it, with the movie becoming part of the studio’s much-criticized tax write-off era. The decision caused an immediate backlash. Filmmakers, fans and Looney Tunes lovers rallied around the movie, and Coyote vs. Acme became one of those strange Hollywood stories where people were fighting to see a movie almost nobody had actually seen.

Well, they won.

After eventually being sold to Ketchup Entertainment, Coyote vs. Acme finally made it into theaters nearly three years after Warner Bros. tried to shelve it for good.

And thank God for that, because this thing is exactly what a Wile E. Coyote movie should be.

The premise alone tells you that the people making it understood the assignment. After decades of ordering catastrophically unreliable products from the Acme Corporation, Wile E. Coyote finally does what any reasonable customer would do.

He gets a lawyer.

It is such an obvious idea that it is almost unbelievable nobody made this movie sooner. Wile E. Coyote is one of the most iconic characters Warner Bros. has ever had, and a courtroom battle against the company that has been supplying him with defective rockets, explosives and assorted death traps for generations is about as perfect a plot as you could give him.

More importantly, the movie understands that you do not need to reinvent the Looney Tunes to make them work.

Wile is still Wile.

Road Runner still Meep-Meeps his way through the movie with the same ridiculous charisma he has always had.

And Will Forte, playing the lawyer who takes Wile’s case, somehow manages to feel like a naturally born Looney Tune himself. He commits completely to the world around him without ever seeming like somebody standing next to a cartoon and waiting for the effects department to finish the scene.

That tone is where Coyote vs. Acme really wins.

It is silly without being stupid. It knows the history of these characters without treating them like museum pieces. And underneath all the explosions, anvils and cartoon violence, there is even a genuinely good little underdog story in there.

There is also something wonderfully appropriate about watching Wile E. Coyote take on a giant corporation after the movie itself spent years trying to escape one.

Maybe that was never supposed to be part of the joke.

It certainly is now.

I was especially excited that I got to take my kid to see this one. Looney Tunes are one of those rare things that can survive generation after generation without needing much explanation. A coyote orders something stupid. It blows up in his face. The Road Runner says “Meep Meep.” Everybody gets it.

That still works.

Coyote vs. Acme feels like a movie made by people who knew exactly why it still works.

A great way to spend a summer afternoon.

HELL YEAH.

Watch

Credit: Mark Gold/KazooWatch

References
Sources & References

10

Links cited, consulted, or used as background for this article. Inclusion does not imply independent verification of every claim.

About the author

Mark Gold

Founder, KazooWatch

Mark Gold is the founder and publisher of KazooWatch, where he covers television, movies, streaming, and the increasingly complicated business of figuring out what is actually worth watching. After years working in live events, media, and creative production, Mark built KazooWatch around a simple idea: entertainment discovery should be useful, independent, and a little more human. He writes reviews, features, industry news, and the occasional opinion that gets people yelling at him on Facebook. When he is not writing, he is usually somewhere behind the scenes building the next part of KazooWatch.