The new Looney Tunes movie “Coyote vs. Acme” features a bunch of familiar faces and names: Wile E. Coyote, of course, his old nemesis the Road Runner, plus icons Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and Daffy Duck, among many others.
The one returning guy even hardcore fans might not expect? Cartoon Peter Lorre.
Lorre isn’t just a member of the old-school Looney Tunes gang – he was actually a real dude, a character actor from classic films like “The Maltese Falcon” and “Casablanca” who also made animated appearances in 1940s and ‘50s cartoon shorts. Lorre being in “Coyote vs. Acme” (in theaters Aug. 28) is part of the movie’s all-star nostalgia trip – one that almost didn’t come to pass when the film was shelved as a tax write-off three years ago.
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A live-action/animation project akin to “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?,” “Coyote vs. Acme” centers on the scheming and silent title character who’s fruitlessly been using defective contraptions made by the powerful Acme corporation for several decades now. Wile E. hires ambulance-chasing New Mexico attorney Kevin Avery (Will Forte) to sue Acme, and the company's head honcho Foghorn Leghorn meets them in court with his own resident counsel, Kevin’s old rival Buddy Crane (John Cena).
Based in part on a 1990 New Yorker humor article exploring if Wile E. had a legal leg to stand on against the infamous gadget manufacturer, “Coyote vs. Acme” is as influenced by “Roger Rabbit” as “A Few Good Men,” “Erin Brockovich” and “The Insider,” says director Dave Green. “When you look back at ‘Roger Rabbit,’ the absolute miracle of that film is that it's equally smart and stupid. You've got cartoon-mania that is told through the lens of a film noir, and it’s that balance of ingredients that makes it work. So we really try to carry the torch of those inspirations.”
Like Wile E., the filmmakers of “Coyote vs. Acme” probably could have used a good lawyer. Warner Bros. dropped the proverbial anvil on everybody’s heads and put the completed film on ice as a cost-cutting measure in November 2023. It sparked a public backlash, people in Hollywood championed its release, and last year the film was acquired for release by Ketchup Entertainment.
Lana Condor, who plays Kevin’s intern/niece Paige, was in Japan when she received what she calls the “absolutely devastating” news that the movie had been shelved. “I had a really hard time understanding that,” she says. Forte also acknowledges feeling like he was on “an emotional roller coaster” when he heard the news: “It was confusing, and it was nuts.”
Cena, on the other hand, took it in stride because of the perspective he gained from 20-plus years as a pro wrestler. “Your segment can get cut, your time can get cut, your opponent can change, expectations change until it's real, until it's live,” he says. “So I guess maybe I've lived that: Don't take this for granted."
The release of “Coyote vs. Acme” isn’t just a rousing comeback for the movie, it’s also a major reintroduction of the Looney Tunes crew. While Mickey Mouse and Co. have multiple theme parks and Pixar characters have various franchise movies, Bugs and his buddies have been relatively quiet on the pop-culture front since the LeBron James-starring sequel “Space Jam: A New Legacy” five years ago.
They’ve always been the underdog in a way. When Looney Tunes and its companion “Merrie Melodies” series started in the 1930s, they were designed to be “the counterpoint“ to Disney’s “Silly Symphonies,” Green says. “They were the cheaper, edgier, more subversive, more irreverent wicked stepchild to what Disney was doing across the street. They were ‘The Simpsons’ of the time."
Growing up in the early 1990s, Looney Tunes shorts “informed my sense of humor,” the director adds. Forte was definitely a fan as a kid in the ‘70s, and remembers being “very emotional” seeing himself alongside these characters. “They're a bunch of buddies. I get to be in this movie with them? It was the coolest,” he says.
“Coyote vs. Acme” also struck a soft spot for Cena, who watched the Looney Tunes gang as a child in small-town New England. “If you have any history, you're gonna be impressed with some of the inside baseball we put in there,” he says. “But if you're a first-time viewer, you’re going to suspend disbelief and go on the ride, just like anybody else.”
Condor, whose parents and grandparents introduced her to Looney Tunes when she was a little girl, fell in love with the characters more making the movie and is curious to see her nieces and nephews’ reactions to it.
“Keeping nostalgia alive and keeping the things that brought huge communities joy and hope, and lasted throughout the test of time, is something that we should keep bringing to the forefront of our art,” Condor says.
She points to Wile E., “a character that just simply never gives up.”
“Yes, we hear it all the time: ‘Don't give up, don't give up.’ But that alone is such a powerful, important message, and a freaking coyote taught us that.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Coyote vs. Acme' was left for dead. Now it's finally here.
