Coyote vs. Acme Crosses $100M Worldwide — the Movie Warner Bros. Tried to Delete

Some movies have to fight for every dollar. Coyote vs. Acme had to fight for its very existence — and it's winning. The live-action/animation hybrid crossed $100 million at the worldwide box office on Monday, September 22, according to reports, completing one of the most remarkable redemption arcs in recent Hollywood memory. This is the movie Warner Bros. shelved for a $30 million tax write-off in 2023. The audience had other plans.

The Shelving Heard Round Hollywood

The backstory is now legend. Warner Bros. Discovery announced in November 2023 that the completed film would be shelved for tax purposes — a $70 million production, finished in 2022, tossed aside for a write-down. The backlash was immediate and furious, from filmmakers, fans, and the industry at large. Then Ketchup Entertainment stepped in, buying the completed film from Warner Bros. Discovery for a reported $50 million and giving it the theatrical release it always deserved.

The film opened August 28 with about $15.4 million — the biggest opening ever for Ketchup Entertainment — and it hasn't looked back. Domestic grosses sit at $54.8 million through its fourth weekend, and in that fourth frame it held No. 5 domestically across 3,035 theaters, adding another $4.5 million. That's staying power, plain and simple.

The Marketing Masterstroke

Ketchup's marketing deserves its own chapter. Working with publicity firm 42West and Maximum Effort — Ryan Reynolds' marketing arm — the campaign leaned directly into the film's tortured history with the tagline "The Movie ACME Didn't Want You to See." It's rare that a film's real-life saga becomes its best trailer, but Coyote vs. Acme pulled it off, turning corporate infamy into genuine audience goodwill.

What the Film Actually Is

Directed by Dave Green, the film stars John Cena, Will Forte, Lana Condor, Eric Bauza, and P. J. Byrne in the story of Wile E. Coyote finally suing the Acme Corporation for decades of faulty products. The premise comes from a 1990 Ian Frazier story in The New Yorker, and the film plays it with surprising heart — a legal underdog comedy wrapped around one of animation's most beloved losers.

The victory lap continues: the film hits VOD on September 29, and it qualifies for the animated Oscar — a delicious bit of irony for a movie its former studio tried to erase. Few films arrive with this much narrative baggage, and fewer still turn that baggage into a genuine asset. Ketchup bet $50 million that audiences would show up for a movie Hollywood's biggest studio didn't want them to see. A hundred million dollars later, the coyote finally caught something.