'Coyote Vs. Acme' Is Very Likely Dead. Again. #SaveCoyoteVsAcme

Fuck David Zaslav. The spiteful and willfully blind old man is no good for the film industry

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Less than three months after heavy public outrage backlash seemed to have Warner Bros. reversing its decision to shelve the Looney Tunes film Coyote vs. Acme, they’re ready to shelve it again, writing it off for taxes.

How did things collapse? Warner Bros. made Coyote vs. Acme impossible to shop. They were insistent on making a profit with this venture, offering a price tag that would cover “negative cost plus”, which amounts to what the movie cost the studio and the extra fees the studio took on. Ready to write the film down to $35–$40 million, Zaslav and the other studio higher-ups were looking for $75–$80 million from potential buyers as the one and only offer. They wouldn’t allow interested studios to make any counteroffer in a “take it or leave it” situation that insiders say no negotiating party was even aware of. Warner Bros. was a bunch of bad-faith negotiators to parties including Netflix, Amazon, who was an early favorite due to one of its bigger people being ex-Warner and championing the film, and Paramount, who all had screenings for the very well-received movie and submitted offers that would be considered enticing to anyone else. Paramount’s offer included a theatrical release, allowing for Warner Bros. to save themselves from embarrassment and, more importantly, allow audiences to get the original-intended experience. Now, it’s easy to believe the shopping offer was empty words and “dubious at best”. A source who is close to the film remembered thinking at the time, “Maybe they’ll try to run out the clock”.

The grossest thing is the four decision-making Warner Bros. executives, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group CEOs and co-chairpersons of Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, Warner Bros. Pictures Animation president Bill Damaschke and of course Warner Bros. Discovery CEO and president David Zaslav, hadn’t watched any sort of finished version of the movie. Respectively, the stages at which they saw Coyote vs. Acme were a “director’s cut” for De Luca and Abdy, Damaschke the first audience preview, and Zas still hasn’t seen a single frame, yet they’re junking it sight unseen, without any true given reason. Sure, the movie comes from a different regime, but that’s just a different excuse. One on top of the claim it was “global strategy to focus on theatrical releases”, even though that’s what everyone’s doing and they’re not shelving completed unreleased films. Warner Bros. steadfastly withheld specific details with the filmmakers about the proposed deals and their subsequent rejections. It was all collected through best memories of “secondhand phone calls and conversations”. Even the biggest champions couldn’t force proper communications from Warner Bros. with the filmmakers.

In this time, Warner Bros. was wooing big name talent like Tom Cruise’s non-exclusive development and production deal, and just Wednesday clinched a period genre (reportedly vampire) film written, directed and produced by Ryan Coogler and starring Michael B. Jordan in their latest collaboration following Fruitvale Station, and the Creed and Black Panther films. It was around the Cruise deal that this film’s producer Chris DeFaria got the dreaded phone call from a Warner Bros. executive. “They just want to get this behind them. They want to close the books.” They want to bury it, but we won’t let them. May this news evaporate all the goodwill these clients had for these executives evaporate. The film’s star, Eric Bauza, had marked the 90 days in the quest, posting on Instagram “It’s been 90 days since the shelving/un-shelving of this film 🎞️ I am still very hopeful we see this movie on the big screen where it belongs, in the near future 🍿🎥🦊🪧🧨💣🧲💥”

bauzilla

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As to not forget what this film that should not be forgotten and instead always fought for is about, Coyote vs. Acme is based on a New Yorker article by Ian Frazier from 1990 and sees Wile E. Coyote become fed up with ACME’s faulty product, so he hires an equally-unlucky human attorney to sue the company. The lawyer discovers that his old law firm's intimidating boss, is ACME's CEO, ensuring their teamup in pursuit of victory. The film is directed by Dave Green and starring Bauza, with John Cena as Acme’s lawyer, Will Forte as Wile E.’s lawyer, and Lana Condor rounding out the live action cast. It was written by Samy Burch, who had done the story with James Gunn (now DC Studios co-CEO) and Jeremy Slater.

Keep on fighting, stay angry. This absurdity has to end. #SaveCoyotevsAcme all the way. We are not giving up. Never let Zaslav or anyone at Warner Bros. involved live it down. May the embarrassment live on. As a reminder, The Animation Guild’s contract expires in July.

Source: The Wrap