6 Reasons Coyote vs. Acme Genuinely Deserves A Family Trip To The Movies

As an entertainment editor, I watch a lot of movies. And, yes, I often wax poetic about the experience of actually going to the theater and staring up at that big old screen with a bucket of popcorn the size of your head. I also know the calculus of a family trip to the movies right now, and that between the cost of tickets and snacks, it’s very tempting to say “we’ll just wait until it hits streaming.”

And while that’s completely reasonable, I’m telling you: If you need a fun family-night-out, it should be a trip to the movies to see Coyote vs. Acme.

In the live-action hybrid reboot, Wile E. Coyote finally lawyers up against the conglomerate that’s been selling him defective rocket skates and the like for 70 years. For those of us who grew up watching the hilarious antics of Wile E., nostalgia already gives us a good bit of built-in incentive. It’s more than that, though. Did you know that the movie spent years buried in a vault because the original studio decided it was better off as a tax write-off?

I spoke to star Lana Condor and director Dave Green during the film’s junket about the full-circle moment of finally seeing the movie make it to theaters. Here’s what they had to say, and why I think Coyote vs. Acme is worth leaving the house for.

1. The movie almost never saw the light of day.

I had no idea this was a thing, but apparently studios will sometimes go through all the trouble of casting, shooting, even editing a whole movie… only to ultimately shelve it to claim a tax write-off. That’s exactly what happened with Coyote vs. Acme in November 2023. Equally as fascinating? There’s something that happens in Hollywood to coincide with this: the “funeral screening.”

“When we got the call that our movie was being shelved, we were invited to Warner Bros. to go to the funeral screening; I didn’t even know that was a thing,” Condor says. “So we went to the funeral screening. And the movie that we saw four years ago at the funeral screening is the movie that you will get.”

We have Ketchup Entertainment to thank for that, as they stepped in and fought to secure the theatrical release the movie deserved. I don’t know about you, but “sticking it to the man” feels like a pretty great reason to go support a movie in person. And on that subject…

2. The little-guy-versus-megacorp thing hits harder these days.

One man (played by Will Forte, no less), his impassioned niece (Condor’s Paige), and a coyote against a profit-based conglomerate? Yeah, there’s definitely an anti-corporate current running through this movie, and that feels wildly fitting given our current timeline. Especially since the film ITSELF got shelved by a profit-based mega-conglomerate.

Condor hopes the David-and-Goliath read lands with audiences right now, at a moment she describes as defined by mistrust of these kinds of institutions. “Our voices matter; that’s why this movie exists,” she emphasizes.

As for Green, the whole experience felt a lot like life imitating art.

“I definitely felt like I learned a lot from this character. [Wile E. Coyote] is so passionate and persistent, and never gives up, and falls down, gets hurt, gets up again, tries again, and that's just the rhythm of who Wile E. Coyote is,” Green says. “So, in the aftermath of what happened to this movie, and its story, absolutely, this character taught us all how to be patient and how to keep trying and how to keep up hope. It really did feel like we were living the lesson of this character in real life, in the immediate moments there.”

3. Condor made it for her mom.

Hearing this genuinely made me tear up, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it.

As Condor tells it, her parents were part of the Looney Tunes generation (“these characters were the fabric of their Saturday mornings”). When she booked the role, her first thought was of them, saying, “I was like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t wait to tell them.’”

In fact, the pitch she’d made in her audition was built on her mom. She recounted telling Green, “I believe that Paige is curious and steadfast and believes in the greater good, and all of those qualities are exactly my mom. If you were to hire me, I would really try and breathe life into Paige, but it’s kind of based off of my mom.”

Then, two years ago, Condor lost her mom. Not surprisingly, that makes this movie all the more meaningful to her. “I was really emotional when I watched it back, because I was like, ‘Yeah, I think I nailed it,’” she shares.

4. You’ll get emotional. Over cartoon characters. Who don’t even speak.

In no way, shape, or form did I expect to watch this movie and be emotionally affected to the point that I got teary-eyed, but there’s one scene in particular that really got me. And since there really isn’t even any dialogue between Wile E. and the Road Runner (save the occasional “meep meep”), that says a lot.

That was the goal, says Green, to find corners of these characters nobody had really considered before. “Sure, on the one hand, Wile E. wants to catch and capture the Road Runner,” he says. “But on the other hand, the Road Runner is Wile E.’s entire reason for being. The Road Runner is the only other character that the coyote interacts with in this big, wide, open desert. So there’s a kinship there.”

Green credits screenwriter Samy Burch for the story's emotional resonance and the animation team for carrying that emotion through in the characters.

5. The nostalgia is earned.

Every legacy IP movie promises they’ll be a love letter to the OG, not a gimmick. But for Green, the only way he would do this is if it was done properly. He did his homework accordingly.

“I was feeling like, OK, we shouldn’t do this if we’re not gonna do it right,” he shares. “That meant diving into the old cartoons, watching all of the Chuck Jones originals again, and writing down every single gag and figuring out what my favorite ones were. You know, which gags worked the best, and which ones were set up well and paid off well. Just really studying how those original films were made and getting as close as we could to being able to capture their spirit.”

Green also worked with storyboard artists who’d worked on Looney Tunes before, alongside ones who’d studied the shorts as obsessively as he had. “As a group effort, the entire cast, the entire crew, all the animators, all the musicians really gave 150% on this project, and they really dedicated themselves to preserving and honoring and carrying the torch for these characters who are truly legacy.”

In other words, if you grew up with these characters and feel protective of them, rest assured: Green and his team took that very seriously, and it comes through in the film.

6. It serves as a reminder to keep going.

Last but certainly not least, one of my favorite parts of the film is the way it flips the script on the way we look at Wile E. Coyote. Improbably, he comes out the role model.

“The fact that he tries, tries, tries every day, fails, fails, fails, fails, and then still wakes up and tries again… I actually think that’s pretty frickin’ awesome,” Condor says. “I think maybe there’s a little bit of crazy in there, but I wish I was more like that.”

We could all use the reminder, especially these days, to never give up. That your next win could be just beyond the horizon. And that not achieving the exact thing we set out to do at a specific moment is not the same thing as failing. It’s the definition of trying, and that should get a lot more credit than we give it.