Can Coyote Vs. Acme Be A Box Office Hit After Coming Back From The Dead?
It's been a long time coming, but "Coyote vs. Acme" is finally making its way to theaters. Just to briefly recap, Warner Bros. tried to ditch the "Looney Tunes" movie as a tax write-off several years ago. Warner Bros. then shifted course, allowing the movie to be shopped to other distributors. It took a long time, but Ketchup Entertainment swooped in to bring it back from the dead. The question is, can they now turn it into a hit at the box office?
Directed by Dave Green, "Coyote vs. Acme" is currently expected to earn between $12 and $18 million domestically when it arrives in theaters next weekend, per Box Office Pro. Those numbers are up from earlier estimates, which had the animated/live-action hybrid flick doing between $3 and $8 million (via Box Office Theory). Even on the high end, it's not a home run, but it's not a disaster either. The movie's success or failure may ultimately not be determined on opening weekend.
Competition won't be a major issue. "Spider-Man: No Way Home" recently became the eighth movie to pass the $2 billion milestone and is now in its fifth weekend. This is to say, the bulk of its business is in the can. It's opening directly against Ridley Scott's "The Dog Stars," which will do between $18 and $23 million, but is very much aiming for a different audience. In a best-case scenario, there's room for an overperformance here.
In a worst-case scenario? Lots of folks who loudly cheered online when "Coyote vs. Acme" finally got a release date after its controversial cancellation decide to stay home and wait to stream it, leaving it to come in on the lower end of expectations. It's truly tough to say which way it's going to go.
Coyote vs. Acme still has some hurdles to overcome
In the movie, after decades of being thwarted by ACME products, Wile E. Coyote finally fights back. Teaming up with billboard accident lawyer Kevin Avery (Will Forte), he takes on slick corporate counsel Buddy Crane (John Cena) and ACME, Inc., the profit-obsessed conglomerate behind every one of the Coyote's chaotic catastrophes.
The good news for Ketchup Entertainment is that they acquired "Coyote vs. Acme" for a reported $50 million, which is less than the reported production budget. Once overseas box office is factored in, at the higher end of estimates, it could be in a position to do fairly well. The problem? Ketchup doesn't have a great track record.
Robert Rodriguez's "Hypnotic" was one of the biggest box office bombs of 2023, taking in just $16 million on a $65 million budget. The studio was also behind "The Day the Earth Blew Up," another "Looney Tunes" movie, which topped out at just over $15 million worldwide after opening on one of the worst weekends at the box office in decades. In short, Ketchup isn't Warner Bros., to put it kindly.
It's a company with limited resources, so they can't run a full-scale marketing campaign. They're going to have to rely on word of mouth. Mercifully, that has been very good thus far. Aside from the feel-good narrative, reviews have been very positive. /Film's Witney Seibold labeled "Coyote vs. Acme" as "perfect for 2026" in his review. We'll have to see how it shakes out, but either way, this movie getting released at all is certainly a better fate than it being shelved for a tax write-off.
"Coyote vs. Acme" hits theaters on August 28, 2026.