Coyote vs. Acme: Sisyphus is Happy
By Rohan Connolly
Coyote vs. Acme (2026) is more than just a movie. To appreciate the film to its full potential, it is critical to understand the journey it took to end up finally on the silver screen.
The hybrid live-action/animation film following classic Looney Tunes characters, namely Wile E. Coyote, as they navigate the real world and take on the Acme Corporation in a cartoonishly large lawsuit, is a beautiful love letter to the decades of cartoons that these characters have brought us and an incredible attempt at bringing them to new, younger audiences.
When Wile E. Coyote (mutely voiced by Eric Bauza) overhears a commercial for Avery, Jones & Maltese, a personal injury law firm specializing in cartoon violence injuries, he makes a perilous and explosive journey into the big city of Albuquerque with his sights set on suing the Acme Corporation for their faulty cartoon products that have harmed Wile E. for decades. It is here that he meets down-on-his-luck, live-action Kevin Avery (Will Forte) who wants to help him with a simple lawsuit for a single pair of broken rocket boots, and his bright-eyed niece Paige (Lana Condor) who, fresh out of law school, sees this case as an opportunity to make real change.
As the group fights their uphill battle against the all-powerful corporation, they discover new details that begin to unravel a conspiracy that Acme has worked hard to hide by the name of Project Sisyphus. Endangering the lives of cartoons everywhere, Project Sisyphus prioritized profits over the safety and wellbeing of the cartoons, leading to disgruntled cartoons who are never quite able to reach their goals, stuck in a loop of always chasing the Road Runner but never being able to catch him, of pushing the boulder up the hill, just to have it roll back down at the end of the day.
It is through this seemingly never-ending legal proceeding that Wile E. Coyote, Kevin, and Paige realize that maybe winning the case, catching the Road Runner, keeping the boulder at the top of the hill, isn't their real goal. Perhaps the goal itself is the chase, the hill, and the journey.
Originally filmed in early 2022 and officially completed in November of 2023, Coyote vs. Acme had fans excited to see the finished film, until Warner Bros. Entertainment announced that the film would be shelved alongside a Batgirl film and a holiday-themed Scooby-Doo film for a $30 million tax write-off. This announcement came when post-production was complete on Coyote vs. Acme, when test audiences had given rave reviews of the film, and when it was being presented to buyers without any of the crew being informed of the decision. After online fan campaigns and in-person and industry protests, the decision to shelve the film was reversed but the studio did not want to release it themselves, only allowing for the film to be bought and released by a new distributor — offers that Warner Bros. Discovery rejected. In 2024, the film was, once again, slated to not only be shelved, but deleted as another $115 million write-off. Cast, crew, and fans within the industry and outside of it made their outrage known, campaigning to the studio to release the film or to allow another studio to release it.
It wasn’t until March of 2025 that the film was acquired by Ketchup Entertainment, an independent film company, for $50 million. Both fans and crew alike were ecstatic, eager to finally see the film released. Fast forward to August of 2026, and audiences are finally able to see the adventures of Wile E. Coyote and his team of lawyers on the silver screen.
The irony of the film's journey to theatres is not lost on most. While Wile E. is on screen trying and failing over and over again to bring a giant corporation with a monopoly on the industry to justice, the filmmakers were doing the same thing. Like Charlie Brown with a football, Wile E. with the Road Runner, or Sisyphus and his boulder, the film kept getting snatched from their hands. The artists, and the cartoons, were continuously used as a tool, blown up by faulty rocket boots and threatened with erasure for the sake of profits.
In an interview with Tom Power for CBC, cast member Will Forte said of the journey to release, “Just like in the movie, all these underdogs somehow were able to rise up against this massive corporation, and now we get to see the movie.” It is impossible to separate the behind the scenes of Coyote vs. Acme from the story it’s telling, proving its own thesis in real time. Sometimes a Coyote fails to catch the Road Runner, sometimes the boulder rolls down the hill, and sometimes a labour of love is shelved by a corporation for profits, but that failure does not take away from the enjoyment of the journey getting there. Is the uphill battle of the chase, of the creative process, of the trial not enough to find satisfaction? As famous philosopher Albert Camus wrote in his essay, “The Myth of Sisyphus”: “The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” Now one must imagine Wile E. Coyote and the team of Coyote vs. Acme happy.