What Coyote Vs. Acme's Box Office Means For The Future Of The Looney Tunes Franchise

Justice has finally been served. After Warner Bros. unceremoniously attempted to scrap the movie for a tax write off several years ago, "Coyote vs. Acme" has made its way to theaters. In March 2025, the movie secured a release thanks to the unlikely savior Ketchup Entertainment. So, after all this, how did the "Looney Tunes" movie do at the box office? Well, it's a little complicated.

Directed by Dave Green ("Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows"), the live-action/animated hybrid flick brought in $15.9 million domestically. That was good enough for number two on the charts behind "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" ($22.2 million), which was number one for a fifth straight weekend. It performed better than the weekend's other big newcomer, Ridley Scott's post-apocalyptic "The Dog Stars" ($8 million), which stars Jacob Elordi and Margaret Qualley.

Warner Bros. spent a reported $70 million producing "Coyote vs. Acme" and was set to take less than that as a tax write-off to get it off of the books, not dissimilar to how the "Batgirl" movie was canceled in 2022. But after months of back and forth, Ketchup paid $50 million for the rights, rescuing it from a grim fate. That alone is a win, but can this movie be an outright financial win? That's where, again, it's complicated.

In the movie, after decades of problems with ACME's products, Wile E. Coyote finally fights back. Teaming up with billboard accident lawyer Kevin Avery (Will Forte), he takes on slick corporate counsel Buddy Crane (John Cena) and ACME, Inc., the profit-obsessed conglomerate behind every one of the Coyote's chaotic catastrophes.

"The Looney Tunes" is a cherished IP for Warner Bros. and, on paper, a sub-$20 million debut for a $70 million movie wouldn't have been good. It would have been framed as a flop. However, public sentiment turned in a big way when WB decided to cancel the movie, and Ketchup Entertainment has been viewed as a savior in all of this. For them, the optics are very different.

Ketchup is a much smaller distributor with far fewer resources. Per Deadline, the marketing budget for "Coyote vs. Acme" was around $10 million, compared to a more typical spend of probably $30-40 million for a movie of this size. Ketchup doesn't have too many movies to its name and the ones they do have don't inspire a ton of confidence. The list includes Ben Affleck's "Hypnotic," which was one of the biggest box office flops of 2023. All of this to say, a $15.9 million debut for this particular company isn't bad at all.

Whether or not "Coyote vs. Acme" will become a hit depends on the coming weeks. The movie boasts an A CinemaScore and great reviews. If it holds well domestically and finds some love overseas, this could look like $50 million well spent, especially after VOD, streaming, etc. is factored in.

In the best case scenario, it could look like "The Spongebob Movie: The Search for SquarePants" ($15.6 million opening/$169.2 million worldwide). If it just goes so-so, it could look more like "Gabby's Dollhouse: The Movie" ($13.6 million opening/$80.8 million worldwide). Either way, "Coyote vs. Acme" can easily be positioned as a qualified win, especially in light of option B, which was being locked in a vault never to be seen at all.

Warner Bros. still controls the fate of "The Looney Tunes" franchise and, unfortunately, this opening weekend isn't going to inspire a lot of confidence in future projects. WB also sold the rights to last year's "The Day the Earth Blew Up," another offkey "Looney Tunes" movie met with acclaim, to Ketchup Entertainment. It didn't go so well.

"The Day the Earth Blew Up" was part of one of the worst weekends at the box office in decades, and it grossed just $15.4 million worldwide by the end of its run. "Coyote vs. Acme" did that on a single weekend in North America. It's already off to a much better start, but not necessarily a good enough start to secure a meaningful future for Bugs Bunny and the gang on the silver screen.

Setting aside the fact that Paramount is likely going to acquire Warner Bros. and that regime is going to have its own agenda, "Looney Tunes" currently appears to be an IP that nobody knows what to do with. WB has tried some interesting things that were met with a warm response critically, but it hasn't moved the needle enough commercially.

HBO Max's "Looney Tunes Cartoons" captured the spirit and style of the classic animated shorts, but that show similarly didn't drum up too much mainstream excitement. It also doesn't help that 2021's "Space Jam: A New Legacy" ($163.6 million worldwide) was not the cultural phenomenon that its predecessor was.

All of this to say, despite the moral win, the future of this storied franchise remains firmly up in the air.

"Coyote vs. Acme" is in theaters now.