The team behind Coyote Vs. Acme has more than just “meep meep” to say to Warner Bros.
Artists who worked on the completed-then-cancelled Coyote Vs. Acme are as angry as Daffy during duck season
Aux News Meep
The actors and writers strikes are finally over, but the jilted team behind the shelved Coyote Vs. Acme isn’t pulling any punches against the studio that crushed their work under an anvil for a measly tax write-off. As reported yesterday, Warner Bros. Discovery decided to give the completed, scored, and audience-tested film the Batgirl treatment and yank it off its slate entirely, despite the fact that it was originally supposed to open earlier this year. (It got bumped for Barbie before getting bumped entirely.)
Despite this massive setback, the team behind the John Cena-led film is embodying, to quote director Dave Green, “resilience and persistence… in the spirit of Wile E. Coyote.” While the video has now been blocked for copyright infringement in an especially cruel twist from WBD, someone on the crew leaked a behind-the-scenes reel of footage we’ll now never see onscreen. The clip contained exactly as many things being blown up and knocked down as you’d expect from a live-action Looney Tunes movie, in addition to just seeming like a whole lot of fun. It’s no wonder the lucky few who did get to see it loved it so much.
The studio’s bizarre decision also cost them and the world this incredible composition by composer Steven Price, who thankfully shared a short clip on X/Twitter. Yes, this is a full choir singing the words “meep meep” over a Tchaikovsky symphony, and yes you should watch it immediately before it gets wiped from the internet like everything else. In the responses to his post, Price also called these “grim times” and said, “this is a weird one, for sure! Good film, scrubbed from existence…”
Other team members also deftly removed WBD’s anvil from their heads with their own barbs. Voice actor Eric Bauza commented, “Here’s a crazy thought… WB Discovery might have a better shot at capturing a younger audience if they stopped shelving/canning all of their kids movies & animated series for tax dollars?! I could be wrong,” before replying to his post, “Not everything can be ‘Shark Week.’” Later, he also shared a video comparing WBD to the terrifying Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Script-contributor Zack Bornstein also commented, writing, “I was lucky to help write on this. [Dave Green] spent years directing a hilarious heartwarming film that tested well with every audience. If great stories with beloved characters and A-list stars are getting shelved for tax write offs, why are studios even in the movie business.”
But perhaps the most upsetting response came from John Cena himself, who posted a caption-less screenshot of Looney Tunes’ “The End” card on Instagram. Over time, we’ll see how much really ended as a result of this decision.
51 Comments
“Not everything can be ‘Shark Week.’”
Great, now Zaslav’s gonna take that as a challenge…
Here comes shark month.
David Zazlav better hope he doesn’t run into John Cena, who will surely crush his vacuous, money-minded head into a singularity with very little effort.
Cena actually seems way too nice to do that… unfortunately.
He turned a King of Fighters boss with a God complex into a philanthropist. More realistic than anyone doing the same to David Zaslav.
Yeah, if Cena got real mad, Zaslav wouldn’t even be able to see him coming in time to do something!
either that or they’d just go play golf together and nauseate everyone
If Cena has one weakness, it’s that he’ll always do what his boss tells him. He never raised his voice to Vince McMahon & meekly apologized for calling Taiwan a country. He’ll never comment on this.(Dave Bautista would be apoplectic and raging all over the internet. Which is why Dave Bautista rules)
Need a disgruntled employee or hacker to leak the film all over the internet
They probably locked the movie down before they told anyone
then you’d just get a lot of There’s a Reason Coyote Movie Canned headlines from sites like this
Movie was finished enough for test screenings, which were through the roof, it seems.Basically everyone who got to see it have said it was terrific.
Seriously, it only takes a couple clicks to get it on The Pirate Bay.
So, I was somewhat right. WB/HBO/Max Discovery is starting to piss enough people off internally. Someone on the crew leaked a behind-the-scenes reel of footage? Yeah it’s blocked for now, but the fact that it happens about a day later after the news says something. If more completed projects no matter how terrible get shelved indefinitely without ever being released so they can be a tax write off, then they have to worry about around thousand cast and crew members. It only takes one or two and then bam, you get headlines saying shelved movies and shows in the WB vault are being leaked online.
very few people would care and the legal dept cleans up the mess
I disagree about few people would care. And the legal dept. would make moves, but it’s the internet. Torrent sites, streaming portal sites, and word spreading about how WB/Discovery wanted to keep those movies and/or TV shows locked away indefinitely, pretty much would guarantee it couldn’t be scrubbed.
I personally doubt these stories gain much traction with the public in general. Our pop-culture-obsessed bubble does not reflect general opinion, and the general public will just see it as typical corporate BS that they can’t really do anything about, if they even hear of it. Few if any of the general public are going to boycott WB or raise a stink with their family/friends about it.However, what this has been doing and will likely continue doing is discourage people, to some degree, from wanting to work for
WB. Talented folks, especially big names, are more likely to say that
they don’t want to risk spending a year or two on a project only to have
dipshits shelve it for stupid finance reasons. This leads to WB having a
bit of a brain drain, which hurts them in the medium term as talented
creatives go elsewhere.
I can’t agree with how much the general public cares, but that’s just differences of opinions. I can agree that whether they care or not, that they can’t really do much about it. However, I’m more focusing on those involved with these projects, or in the industry, and those that are involved with posting movies/shows online do care. And that should more news like this happened, I wouldn’t be surprised if individuals would leak out the forever shelved completed projects.
over a Tchaikovsky symphonyOverture, not symphony. It’s from Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.Also, why is this article using a screencap of one of those awful post-shutdown cartoons, rather than something from Wile E.’s heyday?Otherwise, a good overview of responses to this latest WBD travesty. Here’s to hoping someone’s got a copy of the movie ready to be leaked if WBD hold firm to their decision to lock it up.
You could almost forgive AVC for not knowing the difference, except that Tchaikovsky is one of the most famous composers that ever lived and the 1812 Overture is one of the most famous pieces of music ever performed.
whatcracker?!
You could almost forgive them for thinking the overture was part of a larger piece (as they often are), but it’s inexcusable that the missed making a joke, or at least a reference, to the lyrics of the Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show theme song.Overture, dim the lights. This is it…
I was wondering why that still looked like shit.
Same crew animated this project, so maybe we should look at it as though we dodged a bullet?
Same crew as what? You obviously can’t be referring to the cartoon from which the still at the top of the page was taken, as it’s nearly 60 years old.
I’m guessing they thought the image was somehow relevant to the article (Tweets are like mail?).I also think this particular cartoon (Sugar and Spies) is OK, it has some period charm. It’s one of the two by Robert McKimson, and it’s the 11 directed by Rudy Larriva that earned the post-shutdown cartoons particular infamy.
Fair point on the screencap being from one of the few tolerable post-shutdown cartoons, although it still strikes me as an odd choice.Off-topic, but do you use a Pink Panther icon pic in the comment section of a cartoon website? I’ve got a different username and icon there (look for the I Go Pogo pin), but it’s one of the few other comment sections I’m semi-active in.
Yes, that is me!
That’s a meaningless distinction — I have a recording of the 1812 Overture performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Should they have refused to play it on the grounds that they aren’t the Chicago Overture Orchestra?
Not sure if you’re trying to be funny. Of course there’s no such thing as an Overture Orchestra, whereas symphony orchestras play overtures all the time.
AVC could have just as easily written “this is a full choir singing the words “meep meep” over Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture”.
Calling it “a Tchaikovsky symphony” is incorrect. Related to your example, John Williams often has a symphony orchestra play his movie themes and no one would say they’re playing “a John Williams symphony” because they’re not. It’d be the wrong thing to say.
But in all these cases, if the right set of people to play a given piece of music is a “symphony orchestra”, it is absurd not to consider it a symphony because that clearly is the genre of music it is.
Sorry, but no. A symphony is a defined structure of music typically consisting of multiple movements, without which it isn’t a symphony. An overture is a single-movement piece. Generally no one considers or calls the 1812 Overture a symphony, or in the symphony genre, or even a symphonic piece.
People call it classical music, orchestral music, concert music. There is no symphony genre. There’s a classical genre, Romantic period/genre, orchestral music genre. A symphony can be part of them, not the other way around.
This may seem absurd, but that’s what happens when things are defined by traditions and conventions instead of objective nomenclature.
I loved you as much as the next customer back in the day, Warner Brothers, but your prolonged death twitches are going on just a bit too long and your evacuations are making the carpet smell. Somebody get Michigan J. Frog and Jackeé on the line to sing us out already.
They are almost certainly trying to get bought by Universal. I can understand wanting to cover losses, but the rush to be profitable seems very much driven by wanting to sell because otherwise, they would play it like all the other studios and let all their 90 Day Fiance’s pay for the WB stuff for a time. I can’t see why they wouldn’t throw it on Max to keep subscribers unless the goal is selling.
The video that was taken down was reposted here:
Thanks; I’ve now got it downloaded and backed up.Come get me, Z-man!
i know it’s off the central topic of stupid, money-grubbing executive malfeasance and i’m also sure i’m gonna prompt a bunch of guff about snowflakery or reverse racism name-calling for saying this, but… based on that twitter behind-the-scenes clip, there appear to have been maybe one person of color and only about four women working on this film. i’m sure all those middle-aged white dudes are talented and have a lot of experience, but it’s 2024 and seems kinda weird when people from all over the country are drawn to Hollywood to work in the movies and, apparently, only white guys can get hired. right?
Eric Bauza commented […]: “Not everything can be ‘Shark
Week.’”
David Zaslav: “Of course not, it can also be ‘My 600-lb. Life’”
When the full story of this strike is told, and names are named, I guarantee you that a lot of the other producers and studio heads wanted to fold a lot earlier, but Zaslav was one of the ones holding out because as far as he’s concerned these uppity writers and actors can all be replaced by chatbots, real housewives and Flavor Flav.
Movie I’ve never heard of isn’t coming out. Jesus Fucking Tap Dancing Christ on a Popsicle Stick.
This is a low-effort comment, even for you.
if they were all gold I wouldn’t be here.
None of them are even fake gold.
LEAK IT!
The movie belongs in the public domain.The public paid for it (with taxes), the public should own it.
So asshole VC moron shutters creative projects because he can’t understand anything other than ‘me want money’?Why is that the song we as a society love to sing so loudly? I keep hearing echoes of it here.
We just need to revise the tax code so you don’t get money for NOT doing things.You don’t get money if you choose not to have a tenant in your available real estate.
You don’t get money for shelving a finished movie.You don’t get money for cancelling the galactic starcruiser.You’re in a business. You have a product. If it doesn’t sell, that’s your problem.
Some of those things aren’t like the others. I know landlords aren’t the most sympathetic of people, but the idea of paying landlords when they don’t have tenants is meant to be like paying unemployment to people when they don’t have jobs — the goal of both isn’t to discourage landlords finding tenants or people finding jobs but to stop them from going broke when neither is possible.
Countless landlords specifically refuse and decline even good paying tenants because they can make more money on a tax write-off.That should be literally illegal.
It happens all the damn time.
But that’s basically the same argument that business owners make against unemployment benefits — “Nobody wants to work anymore! These people make more money on unemployment benefits than I’m willing to pay them to work in my restaurant! This should be illegal!”. Both unemployment benefits and vacancy benefits are set well below market rates. And just as it isn’t surprising that people aren’t rushing to crappy jobs not willing to pay market rates, it shouldn’t be surprising that landlords aren’t keen to accept tenants at below market rates either.
Looks fun as hell. Leak the whole damn thing!