'The Day The Earth Blew Up' Saviors Ketchup Entertainment In Negotiations For 'Coyote vs. Acme'
Here we are a year later and it might be SAVED? COULD IT BE?
Oh could this be the day the Earth blew up in excitement? Ketchup Entertainment, who rescued The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie from its August 2022 scrapping as part of a massacre of project scrappings for the intent of tax writeoffs, termed “cost-cutting measures” by the new regime at Warner Bros. Discovery, is now in deep negotiations with the company to rescue another Looney Tunes project that met the fate it averted: Coyote vs. Acme.
That’s right, a year after officially being written off and personally losing a clique of friends who surrendered to the nihilism, there might be life again for the animation-live action hybrid film. It’s all-rights acquisition in the $50 million range for the animated-live-action hybrid. It’s not finalized yet but it’s heading in the right direction to not fail. If the deal is made, the film is headed for a theatrical release next year. It comes off a $3.1 million domestic opening weekend at the box office for The Day The Earth Blew Up.
'Coyote Vs. Acme' Star Will Forte Releases Statement To Cast And Crew Following Apparent Write-Off
It’s been nearly a week since Warner Bros. Discovery officially disclosed their cruel write-off of Coyote vs. Acme. Though not by name and lumped in with other projects to amount to about $115 million. And it sucks. It truly truly sucks. But now, Will Forte
One might recall where we last left off 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, which they ultimately did, 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. Many victims still remain, including Bye Bye Bunny, Batgirl, and Scoob! Holiday Haunt.
Based on the New Yorker humor article “Coyote v. Acme” by Ian Frazier (and by formality the Looney Tunes characters), Coyote vs. Acme follows Wile E. Coyote, who, after Acme products fail him one too many times in his dogged pursuit of the Roadrunner, decides to hire a billboard lawyer to sue the Acme Corporation. The case pits Wile E. and his lawyer against the latter’s intimidating former boss, but a growing friendship between man and cartoon stokes their determination to win. It is directed by Dave Green and stars The Day The Earth Blew Up’s Eric Bauza as Wile E. Coyote and at least several other Looney Tunes characters, with Will Forte as the lawyer, John Cena as Acme’s lawyer, Tone Bell, Martha Kelly, P.J. Byrne and Lana Condor. It was written by Samy Burch, who had done the story with James Gunn (now DC Studios co-CEO) and Jeremy Slater. It’s worth noting that Bauza has made rallying calls for the film and jokes about the horrid practice at his award show appearances. He posted emojis to his screenshot post of Deadline’s story on Instagram.
Condor attended the film’s funeral screening and told ScreenRant in January it was “probably definitely the most devastating thing in my career thus far. Yeah, I loved that movie so, so much. I had the honor of working with incredible artists for it, and we built the most amazing worlds and we got to work with phenomenal puppeteers and CGI and just all these things, and it was so nostalgic and I loved the story through and through and we had a blast making it. And I am genuinely heartbroken that there's a world that no one will ever see it for tax purposes, I think. That's so, so sad. And when I got the news, they invited me to a funeral screening, which is the saddest thing ever.”
Forte meanwhile was rightfully still outraged about the whole ordeal when asked by MovieWeb in an interview just a couple of weeks later, but found it endearing and was touched that it was brought up at all. “My thoughts were that it’s fucking bullshit,” he said, as he was on a press tour as he co-starred in Amy Schumer’s Kinda Pregnant, which released to Netflix that week. “It is such a delightful movie. It deserves so much better than it got. I can’t tell you possibly why the decision was made to not release it. But it makes my blood boil.”
“Thank you for asking me about it because I like talking about the movie because I don’t want people to forget what [Warner Bros.] did to this,” he continued. “I appreciate them letting us make it, but don’t let us make this thing that we fall in love with and then not show it. I would understand if the thing sucked, but it’s really good. Maybe somehow we get to see it at some point. I hope people do. I was really proud of it.”
James Gunn, Peter Safran Update The State Of DC Studios With New Press Event
Just over two years ago, heading into three months as DC Studios co-CEOs, James Gunn and Peter Safran unveiled the first ten projects of their main DC Universe. A year later, Gunn was touching on the slate and its flexible elasticity. While January 31 had come to pass without anything major, it took just a three week wait longer with a new press event, …
Sources: Deadline, ScreenRant, MovieWeb