Coyote vs. Acme trailer teases mayhem

Ketchup Entertainment has released the first official trailer for *Coyote vs. Acme*, the Looney Tunes live-action hybrid Warner Bros. shelved in 2023. (coyotevsacme.com) (deadline.com) The trailer shows Wile E. Coyote hiring a billboard lawyer, played by Will Forte, to sue Acme after years of exploding gadgets failed to catch the Road Runner. John Cena appears as Acme’s lawyer, with Lana Condor and Tone Bell also in the cast. (coyotevsacme.com) (thehollywoodreporter.com) Ketchup’s official site lists the film for an August 28, 2026 theatrical release and credits Dave Green as director. The screenplay is by Samy Burch, from a story by James Gunn, Jeremy Slater and Burch. (coyotevsacme.com) (animationmagazine.net) The trailer arrives after a two-and-a-half-year fight over a movie that had already been shot and was once dated for July 21, 2023. Warner Bros. later pulled it and moved to take a reported $30 million tax write-down. (deadline.com) That changed in March 2025, when Ketchup completed a deal for worldwide rights that Deadline reported at about $50 million. The distributor had previously handled *The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie*. (deadline.com) The first audience signal was immediate. Deadline reported the trailer reached 25.6 million views in its first 24 hours, which WaveMetrix said was the biggest family-film trailer launch ever for an independent studio. (deadline.com) The footage leans into courtroom comedy and cartoon physics at the same time: legal filings, collapsing contraptions, and Wile E. Coyote treated as a wronged consumer instead of a silent gag character. Trade coverage described the release as the first real look at a film fans had spent years trying to save. (thewrap.com) (thehollywoodreporter.com) For now, the trailer’s job is simple: prove the movie exists, set the August date, and turn a tax-write-off saga into a theatrical launch. After years of near-erasure, Wile E. Coyote is back in court and back on the release calendar. (coyotevsacme.com) (deadline.com)