“What was David Zaslav thinking?” That’s the question anyone watching the hilarious first trailer for the highly anticipated Coyote vs. Acme will be asking themselves, especially after the Warner Bros. Discovery CEO infamously tried to vault the completed film for a tax write-off.
The shelving attempt of Coyote vs. Acme, along with the similarly completed Batgirl, was one of the first headline-making decisions under Zaslav’s reign at WBD. Thankfully, after an almighty backlash, Zaslav relented and let the filmmakers find new distributors. In March 2025, Ketchup Entertainment acquired the rights and then got people hyped for the film with a first look at San Diego Comic Con last year and an industry-only look at the trailer at CinemaCon earlier this year. Fast forward to today and Ketchup has released the first proper look at the film that became a cause célèbre in Hollywood. And it looks like it might have been worth all the fuss.
The two-minute trailer for Coyote vs. Acme, that drops ahead the film’s first public screening at this year’s Comic Con on July 25, features the perennially unlucky Coyote trying and failing to capture Road Runner. Time and again he fails, but hark! His misfortune might be down to the Acme products he’s been using all these years! After seeing a television ad by a struggling billboard attorney (Will Forte), Coyote decides to take on the might of the Acme Corporation and their head lawyer (John Cena) for all their faulty products, setting things up nicely for a David vs. Goliath legal battle with a Looney Tunes twist.
The trailer features all the madcap violence found in the Coyote cartoons (there are so many dropped anvils it beggars belief) and Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny and other famous Looney Tunes characters all make appearances. Tweetie Pie kinda steals the trailer and the addition of Foghorn Leghorn as an operatic Southern gentleman lawyer representing Acme is a lovely touch (think Lane Smith in My Cousin Vinny or Tommy Lee Jones in The Client).
As well as Forte and Cena, the human cast includes Lana Condor, Tone Bell, P. J. Byrne, Martha Kelly and Luis Guzmán. Coyote vs. Acme was directed by Dave Green and written by Samy Burch from a story by Burch, James Gunn and Jeremy Slater. The film is produced by Gunn and Chris DeFaria.
Coyote vs. Acme hits theaters on Aug. 28.
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