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'Coyote vs. Acme' Beats Ridley Scott's Newest Movie (cartoonbrew.com) 59

Posted by EditorDavid from the meep-meep dept.
Inverse shares a movie success story from last weekend: Coyote vs. Acme debuted to $15.9 million at the box office, beating out iconic director Ridley Scott's latest sci-fi adventure, The Dog Stars. This success has only continued since, and the worldwide box office currently sits above $22 million. Strong reviews and word-of-mouth are sure to keep viewers coming in, especially during the holiday weekend.
What's impressive is Coyote vs. Acme had a limited marketing campaign that includes viral stunts. They photographed the movie's world premiere with a vintage Tasmanian Devil polaroid camera, and launched a phone number for the law firm suing Acme. ("If you've been injured by an enormous rubber band, press 7. If you've been injured by painted train tunnel that suddenly sprang to life, press 8...")

And Cartoon Brew reports that Wednesday "the famously silent Looney Tunes star participated in an AMA on Reddit's r/movies, answering questions about his career, his relationship with the Road Runner, and the Warner Bros. executive who nearly prevented audiences from seeing his latest movie." In keeping with tradition, Wile E. delivered his responses through images of himself holding signs. The format produced several interesting and occasionally thought-provoking exchanges, but one obvious highlight came when a user asked: "Rumor has it that David Zaslav was paid off by ACME to cancel your film; what is your opinion on this?" Wile E.'s response was an image of the coyote glaring at the camera while holding a sign that read, "It's a limited number of signs," pulled from a scene in the film when Mr. Coyote first meets his eventual attorney Kevin Avery, played by Will Forte.
Meanwhile, Boing Boing cites local news reports that a Southern California bird watcher Alexander DeBarros has actually captured a photo of a coyote holding a roadrunner bird in its mouth: In an incredible coincidence that is a movie publicist's dream, he snapped the rare, possibly unprecedented, photo on the opening weekend of the movie Acme vs. Coyote... In an even more incredible coincidence, DeBarros's father, Brian Mainolfi, is an animator whose first job in the field was working for Chuck Jones, the creator and director of the Roadrunner cartoon series.
Cartoon Brew notes a Reddit user specifically asked the Coyote for his reaction to the news. Wile E. responded with some unexpectedly healthy advice: "We cannot judge our worth on the work of others."
Aftermath calls the movie "a well made, deeply funny movie that pays a deep respect to the Looney Tunes in a way that Warner Brothers currently seems uninterested in doing."

'Coyote vs. Acme' Beats Ridley Scott's Newest Movie More | Reply

'Coyote vs. Acme' Beats Ridley Scott's Newest Movie

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  • Well, it was false advertising (Score:3)

    by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Saturday September 05, 2026 @01:14AM (#66324278) Homepage

    The dog is not in fact, the star of the Ridley Scott film.

  • I kind of want to see this movie after reading a summary https://www.inverse.com/entert... [inverse.com]

  • Turns Out, the Coyote Had Better Taste (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CustomBuild ( 2891601 ) on Saturday September 05, 2026 @01:56AM (#66324296)
    Nothing says âoeHollywood has learned absolutely nothingâ quite like Coyote vs. Acme being shoved toward the corporate incinerator while audiences apparently preferred it to Ridley Scottâ(TM)s latest cinematic endurance test. One movie had the audacity to be funny, accessible, and apparently enjoyable; the other had the full prestige-industrial complex behind it and still couldnâ(TM)t outrun a cartoon coyote carrying an anvil. Itâ(TM)s the perfect little morality play for modern Hollywood: lecture the audience, congratulate yourself for being Important, spend a fortune, and then act bewildered when people would rather watch Wile E. Coyote get flattened for the thousandth time. ACME may be fictional, but the executives who nearly buried the better movie are providing some very real slapstick

    • Yeah I can't imagine why the general public prefers a Looney Toons movie over a slow burn post apocalypse drama with a poor title.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by drnb ( 2434720 )

        The DoD became the Department Of War and lost their very first war.

        The Dept of Defense was a 1949 PR renaming of the Dept of War. The DoD's win record is not very good, the DoW's is pretty good and the current conflict is not over.

        • How's the oil price? Is it falling yet? Those DoW people really ought to get their fingers out and end their war already. It's not professional.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by drnb ( 2434720 )

            How's the oil price? Is it falling yet? Those DoW people really ought to get their fingers out and end their war already. It's not professional.

            Around $95, lower than Trump's all time high of around $110, both of which are lower than Biden's all time high of around $115. Trump is doing better during a literal persian gulf war than Biden did in peace time.

            • The oil spike in 2022 was due to Russia invading Ukraine ... so *not* peacetime.

              And as you know, the current spike is entirely and directly Trump's fault.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by drnb ( 2434720 )

                The oil spike in 2022 was due to Russia invading Ukraine ... so *not* peacetime.

                Biden's attacks on US oil and gas drilling added greatly to that. It not only decreased supply and raised prices, decreased future expectations of production, it made Europeans continue to buy from Russia, to essentially fund the war against Ukraine.

                • You should add that information to this chronology about factors that contributed to oil prices:
                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

                  For some reason, it primarily mentions Biden in relation to the SPR and doesn't have any discussion about "attacks" on oil production.

                  It's almost like your claim is unsubstantiated bullshit.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          The DoD ensured that MAD remained Mutual and then won the Cold War. It's pretty big fucking deal that hasn't (yet) been unwound by Trump's dream of surrendering to Russia.

          Today we have idiots buying into Hegseth's performative bullshit, where everything is based on fiction and appearances and personal loyalty. Hegseth seems to think that what works in video games is what works in real life. He's the most insecure and incompetent defense secretary ever, and there's quite a bit of competition for the bottom

          • The DoD ensured that MAD remained Mutual and then won the Cold War. It's pretty big fucking deal that hasn't (yet) been unwound by Trump's dream of surrendering to Russia.

            Today we have idiots buying into Hegseth's performative ...

            Renaming Dept of War to Dept of Defense in 1949 was performative.
            Renaming Dept of Defense to Dept of War in 2026 was both performative and historical, a nod to the WW2 and Civil War legacies. The Dept of War was original created in 1789. That various wars:

            DoW: War of 1812, US Civil War, Mexican-American War, Spanish American War, World War 1, World War 2.

            DoD: Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War, Global War on Terror

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Anonymous Coward

              Renaming Dept of War to Dept of Defense in 1949 was performative.

              "Renaming" is not an accurate description - the changes in the 1947 act included creating the Air Force and changing the Navy from a cabinet-level department. The "War" name was originally set up when the plan was for to not have a standing army - i.e., the DoW would essentially only exist during a war.

              In a world where the Strategic Air Command going to "War" will be a complete disaster for humanity, having that organization in a group charged

    • Makes more money != better.

      It's like saying that junk food is better than proper restaurant food. People consume low quality shit all the time.

      It's also insane to suggest "Hollywood" doesn't like producing easy money makers, given the number of nostalgia baiting movies, reboots, and spinoffs we've seen in recent years.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I really enjoyed Coyote, it was funny and actually quite biting towards corporations at times.

      Maybe next time they try to get a tax write off the taxman can challenge it on the basis that the movie actually would make more money than it cost to produce.

    • The industry heard "Everyone wants to watch X for the thousandth time" and came up with the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

      Hopefully we don't get a dozen new Wile E. movies in the next 10 years.

  • Is the book boring, or is the movie a terrible adaptation?

  • Awright, Spoiler Alert (Score:4, Informative)

    by rally2xs ( 1093023 ) on Saturday September 05, 2026 @10:48AM (#66324616)

    Don't read if its important to you, but Dog Stars sucked.

    They lost me early on when they rationalized the shooting, long-range sniper-style, of 2 kids most probably out hunting for food with guns. OK, post-apocalyptic earth could be a really ugly place, but don't try to entertain me with it. Then, there's this apocalypse, but years later there's still gasoline? Tell me another one. And, a plane zero's it's oil pressure, lands in the mountains, just happens to be where it might be able to take off again, but magically there's tools and enough spare oil from somewhere to fix the oil leak, replenish what's needed, and, oh yeah, do enough work to the mountainside to be able to roll sufficiently for a takeoff, clearing out some 1000+ feet of runway of brush, rocks, etc. Then there's the cannibals at the only remaining airport with a radio, and they somehow escape them. Oh, and then again there's gasoline, not having gone bad from years of storage. Really?

    The "science" in the scifi is a bridge too far for me, as well as being morally bankrupt. The only thing really believable is the guns and endless supply of ammo since yes, America does have about 500 million guns in private hands and literally trillions of rounds of ammo. There would always be guns and ammo. But otherwise, gimmie a break. Box office is often greatly enhanced by people going back multiple times, but this flick needent hold it's breath, I'm not even watching it on streaming or recommending it to friends.

    • It's a wish fulfillment film for a very narrow demographic. Much in the way Red Dawn was. And for the people who completely missed the message of the B side of the plot, Falling Down.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by drnb ( 2434720 )

        It's a wish fulfillment film for a very narrow demographic. Much in the way Red Dawn was.

        Nope, not at all. More of a 'be prepared' thing, prepared for things you absolutely do NOT want to happen. Its a bit like city folk buying face masks and hand sanitizer, they aren't wishing to revisit covid days.

    • Firearms are only as good as they are maintained and stored.
      Ammo is only as good as it is stored.
      So most of those US stats are purely very short term.

      Fear the man buying a case of break free as the apocalypse approaches, not the man buying a case of ammo.

  • Nation Lampoon magazine did this story in 1982 (Score:3)

    by walterbyrd ( 182728 ) on Saturday September 05, 2026 @03:59PM (#66324997)

    It was called “Cliff-Hanger Justice.” It was a satirical legal story written by Joey Green for National Lampoon magazine.
    The multi-part story ran sequentially in the August, September, and October 1982 issues.

    Google AI:
    > "The piece is written entirely as a formal courtroom transcript and legal filings. In it, Wile E. Coyote sues the Acme Corporation for product liability. He seeks damages for the severe physical and psychological trauma caused by their chronically defective merchandise—including faulty giant rubber bands, explosive jet skates, malfunctioning catapults, and defective dehydrated boulders."

    Ian Frazier wrote a highly similar, famously anthologized essay titled "Coyote v. Acme" for The New Yorker in 1990.

    Just thought I'd mention it.

  • I had a thin hope that Dog Stars might be worth actually going to a theater to watch, so I'm a little disappointed to hear otherwise. After already wasting my time on the "turd of the year" that was Disclosure Day, and then choking down whatever The Odyssey was supposed to be... I think I'm done with Hollywood movies for the foreseeable future. Might check out Coyote though.

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