By: Paul Jefferson

Coyote vs Acme is a movie made by Warner Brothers Discovery — now WBD — that you may never get to see. The film has become the latest victim of WBD’s tax write-offs and cancellations.

Coyote vs. Acme was going to be a movie about Wile E. Coyote of Looney Tunes fame, suing the in-universe company Acme for all the faulty products he bought over the years to catch the Roadrunner. The film would have mixed live action and 2D animation. The film would have starred John Cena, Lana Condor, and Will Forte.

In 2022, Discovery bought Warner Brothers and merged into WBD. When this happened, the head of both companies became David Zaslav. As president, Zaslav began making lots of extreme decisions in an effort to save money. Most notably he started canceling projects for tax write-offs.

If a movie is written off by a studio before it’s released, then the IRS will refund the studio for the total cost of making the movie. This is because if the studio doesn’t attempt to make a profit on the movie, then the studio can’t make its money back on the film and by proxy hurt the company at large and the economy.

When the news came of the film Coyote vs. Acme written off in 2023, there was lots of outcry. Almost everyone, from people who worked on the movie to industry veterans who saw the movie have all said that the film is amazing. 

WBD has received offers for the film from Amazon, Apple, and Netflix. The reason these offers were declined is unknown, but it can be assumed it is because the offers were not high enough to cover the film’s 70 million dollar budget.

This isn’t the first time WBD has done this. Other notable cancellations include The Batgirl, and Scooby Holiday Haunt.