‘Coyote vs. Acme’ No Longer Dead After Big Backlash to Warner Bros.
‘Coyote vs. Acme’ No Longer Dead After Big Backlash to Warner Bros.
Studio will allow an outside distributor to purchase the film after significant public protest, including its creatives speaking out to Rolling Stone.
I don't know if it will be a good movie or not. My issue is how can you get a better tax break by not releasing a movie than by releasing it and having it bomb?
This plot seems familiar.
Not that there's anything wrong with this, but you do know that the movie version featured Uma Thurman in this role...
It’s complicated. It’s not just a straight tax write off, but also you cut costs by shelving it. Marketing and other post-production budgets can be high. Also, if a film is really bad, there’s reputation damage to the brand, which is hard to quantify.
I'm a bit of a movie buff, and if I've heard it once...
"There isn't a writer or director in Hollywood who is half as creative as the worst studio accountant!"
"Internet does full week of free advertising for soon-to-release Warner Bros. movie"
They aren’t actually releasing it. They’re selling it to someone else to release it
True, but maybe they'll get more now that there's buzz
Late stage rigged market capitalism is eating itself in every sector now that it struggles to find room left to grow/metastasize, including in economic sectors with much higher stakes.
It's just well exemplified in entertainment. Hollywood used to be in the business of telling stories, now it's in the business of regurgitating established IPs and literally using profit maximizing narrative formulas rather than bothering with risky originality, when it isn't shelving completed stories for tax advantages, robbing the commons, you and I, of what they owe the society that facilitates their insatiable greed.
Gaming is now just the business of building microtransaction traps disgused as video games.
Entire industries have been perverted to betray the very goods/services they were created to and exist to provide in favor of market capitalism grifts and scams that provide more short term profit, usually cannibalizing their ability to provide said products/services at their former quality in the process.
And yet we wonder why our supposedly developed nation mortality rates are skyrocketing for newborns and mothers, in our FOR PROFIT healthcare and health insurance industry. Gee, it's a mystery!
Was wondering if someone had leaked this news to stir up support, but I’m glad they did because this sounds pretty cool.
I too like marketing stunts
Paywall.
‘Coyote vs. Acme’ No Longer Dead After Big Backlash to Warner Bros.
The studio will now allow an outside distributor to purchase the film after significant public protest, including its creatives speaking out to Rolling Stone November 13, 2023
In a significant backpedal, Warner Bros. has reversed its decision to shelve the completed Coyote vs. Acme film, and is now allowing an outside distributor to purchase the film after significant public protest, a source confirmed to Rolling Stone.
It’s been a quick turnaround from Thursday when it was first reported that Warner Bros. was using the live-action/animation hybrid starring John Cena and Lana Condor as an estimated $30 million tax write-off instead of moving ahead with a theatrical and/or streaming release.
After filmmakers and crew expressed their shock and disappointment about the decision, and argued that the film was fantastic, plus mounting criticism from veteran filmmakers over Warner Bros.’ pattern of axing projects for the sake of tax benefits, Warner Bros. said on Sunday that it was willing to allow the film to be shopped to other distributors, Puck first reported. (Rolling Stone understands there are several interested buyers, including Amazon Prime.)
The loud public outcry and desire for the film’s release were the key factors in the studio changing its mind, a well-placed source says. “This is total victory,” they say. “I don’t think management ever minds disappointing the people that work for them, but they do mind disappointing their audience.”
This is total victory. I don’t think management ever minds disappointing the people that work for them, but they do mind disappointing their audience.
The news had been a blow to the cast and crew who were effectively blindsided by the studio’s decision. Director Dave Green and top producers had allegedly only been informed after Warner Bros. already underwent the process of writing off the movie, Rolling Stone reported. The movie has been in production since 2020 and is based on Looney Tunes’ Wile E. Coyote and The New Yorker humor article “Coyote v. Acme” by Ian Frazier. It had tested positively with audiences, earning 14 points above the norm for a family film.
Green has not yet publicly commented on the reversal, but in a statement on Thursday had voiced his disappointment and said he was “beyond proud of the final product, and beyond devastated by WB’s decision.”
“The outcry on social media following the initial announcement clearly shows there is interest and an audience,” he says. “I’m really thankful for all the support we received. Wile E. Coyote has his 75th anniversary next year and I can’t think of a better way to celebrate this than with a release of Coyote vs Acme.” Trending She Had a Week Between Tours, So She Ran an Ultramarathon 'Big as the What?': Drake Recruits J. Cole for 2024 It's All a Blur Tour Internet Sleuths Want to Track Down This Mystery Pop Song. They Only Have 17 Seconds of It Taylor Swift Asks Fans Not to Throw Objects on Stage: ‘It Really Freaks Me Out’
Warner Bros. had originally blamed the decision to not release the film due to “shifting its global strategy to focus on theatrical releases” in light of relaunching its animation department in June. The movie was originally greenlit for HBO Max before it was given a theatrical release date of July 21. However, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie ended up taking over the summer date and the plan for Coyote vs. Acme was unclear until Thursday’s report. If Warner Bros. stuck to its decision, the project would have become the latest casualty in Warner Bros. Discovery and CEO David Zaslav’s cost-cutting campaign across the company. In an effort to recoup some $3 billion in savings, the studio axed the films Batgirl and Scoob! Holiday Haunt last year in exchange for tax write-offs.
100% just marketing
Do I sense Morbo-vu?
Cool.
Now can we please do NatGeo's season 2 of Barkskins?