After an underdog story of being shelved and then getting a theatrical release three years later, Coyote vs. Acme is poised to hit theaters as a loony courtroom misadventure for the ages, answering a question that’s long been running in the back of folks’ minds: what would happen if Wile E. Coyote sued Acme? To answer that, he’ll have to team up with Will Forte and Lana Condor to wrestle John Cena in a court of law to find out in a hybrid live-action animated movie later this month.
This isn’t the first time Looney Tunes has jumped into a hybrid animated-live-action film. Pepperidge Farm remembers the Brendan Fraser-led Looney Tunes: Back in Action. Likewise, every project in the genre still lives in the long shadow of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. With Coyote vs. Acme adding its own ledger to the court records, io9 spoke with director Dave Green and longtime Looney Tunes voice actor Eric Bauza about how their underdog film stands apart from past Looney Tunes adventures and holds its own in a summer stacked with blockbuster heavyweights.
While there’s been much ado about how Coyote vs. Acme went from being the movie Warner Bros. didn’t want folks to see to reclaiming that narrative in its own advertisements as a court drama “Acme” doesn’t want viewers to see, Green says the movie folks will see in theaters is “100 percent” untouched since Ketchup Entertainment purchased the distribution rights. Though, if they could have their way, Bauza and Green joked about adding puppets tot he movie in post to really go wild with it. Still, the fact that the movie faced an uphill battle hasn’t led the pair to lose faith that Coyote vs. Acme is a tale worth telling in theaters.
“Most of the Looney Tunes movies that’ve been made to this date have been ensemble pictures. Coyote vs. Acme is very much the Iron Man to the Avengers. It is a character study of Wile E. Coyote and what his wants, needs, and obstacles are. He’s got such a singular want. He wakes up every single day expecting and hoping to catch the Roadrunner and eat Roadrunner stew that night,” Green said. “In this way, Wile E. is such an incredible optimist. In getting to feature him in that way as a star of this movie, we really get to know him in a much deeper way that I think audiences haven’t seen him before.”
It’s certainly no small feat to have a main character who speaks through pantomiming and cue cards stand his ground in a courtroom where the sunset he hopes to ride off into could very well be painted on a brick wall. To make sure his journey is worthy of both Wile E.’s plight as the cartoon medium’s stalwart Sisyphus and die-hard Looney Tunes fans’ price of admission, Bauza teased “cameos galore” that serve the purpose of the plot over being arbitrary fan service.
“I think that’s very unique,” Bauza said. “They’re not just slapped on there just to go, ‘Oh, look at that! I remember that!’ There’s importance and a reason why characters appear in the film the way that they do.”
In order to discern how to add the pantheon of Looney Tunes characters into Coyote vs. Acme without going too far into cloying reference fodder, Green says they looked outside Bugs Bunny’s domain to The Muppets for inspiration.
“When you watch a Muppets movie, they’re never talking about the group of Muppets as ‘the Muppets.’ [Coyote vs Acme] characters are hopping into roles and cameo appearances that really—hopefully—support the story and the plot,” he said.
That’s not to say that The Muppets were the only source of inspiration for how Green helmed Coyote vs Acme. He also did his homework with a media cocktail of classic cartoons and lawyer shows to find the pocket in the otherwise disparate Venn diagram he wanted the film to sit in.
“Obviously, Roger Rabbit is a masterpiece. It’s a huge tonal imprint on the movie and a huge inspiration. But as well as that, I was watching courtroom dramas and thrillers like Erin Brockovich, A Few Good Men, and The Verdict. Even a movie like The Insider was a huge inspiration for me here because—in all of those movies—we are telling great stories where we really care about our heroes. We care about what they want and what they’re fighting for. And that’s what was a north star for [screenwriter] Samy Burch and me in designing the screenplay.”
Audiences can look forward to seeing how things pan out for Wile E. Coyote when Coyote vs. Acme hits theaters on August 28.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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