One of the final films to hit theaters this summer is a title that almost never made it to theaters. After months upon months of public pressure, the “Looney Tunes” comedy “Coyote vs. Acme” will be released this weekend after Warner Bros. backed off of plans to permanently shelve it for a tax writeoff, instead selling it to indie distributor Ketchup Entertainment.

For the cast and crew of “Coyote vs. Acme” and all those who demanded that the world get to see the fruits of their labor, the fact that this film is now out in the world is more than enough. But the question remains: how much could the film make without the marketing muscle of Warner Bros. behind it?

For now, “Coyote vs. Acme” is tracking for an opening weekend of $14-16 million, the top end of that range being nearly double the $8.8 million that “The Day the Earth Blew Up” made from Ketchup’s release in spring 2025 with a maximum screen count of 2,827 locations. Ketchup didn’t disclose how many screens “Coyote vs. Acme” would be on.

The story behind the film’s journey to the big screen is almost as interesting as the film itself. In February 2024, TheWrap’s Drew Taylor exclusively reported that the live-action/animation hybrid starring Will Forte, Lana Condor and John Cena was poised to never see the light of day after Warner Bros. set a non-negotiable $75-80 million price to acquire the film that would allow the studio to recoup the budget and fees it spent on the film, scaring away many would-be bidders.

After a year of backlash and protests from the animation community, Warner finally reached a $50 million acquisition deal with Ketchup, which had previously released Warner’s “Looney Tunes” feature “The Day the Earth Blew Up” and which recouped a reported $20 million of its acquisition costs from foreign presales at Cannes.

In lieu of major studio marketing, “Coyote vs. Acme” has built up a more tongue-in-cheek, social media-fueled campaign playing into the film’s turbulent road to release and how it humorously echoes its story of Wile E. Coyote taking on a corporate behemoth as he sues ACME for all the faulty gadgets they’ve sold him over the years.

Ketchup’s trailers and social media campaigns have playfully sold “Coyote vs. Acme” as “the film ACME doesn’t want you to see” and marking Warner Bros. as Acme’s subsidiary, suggesting that the film’s shelving was part of the fictional company’s plot to silence poor Wile E.

And it seems to be getting some traction, as the current mid-teens projections for “Coyote vs. Acme” is up from initial projections of an $8-10 million start. Further helping matters is the 95% Rotten Tomatoes score for the film, which will surely catch the eye of many users on the Fandango site unaware that a new “Looney Tunes” movie is coming out.

But given that it is back-to-school time, “Coyote vs. Acme” is not going to get the family-driven audience it might have gotten had Warner Bros. chosen to release the film itself. This opening weekend will likely be fueled by grown-up “Looney Tunes” fans and animation enthusiasts, a good chunk of whom may bring their kids along.

But that speaks more to awareness rather than potential appeal. Though the circumstances of its release have technically made it an indie title, “Coyote vs. Acme” was meant for four-quadrant appeal, winning kids over with slapstick cartoon humor and adults with Forte and Cena’s family-friendly take on the classic legal drama conflict between the scrappy underdog ambulance chaser and the ruthless corporate attorney.

Early screenings have left attendees raving on social media, and parents will certainly know about “Looney Tunes” even if their kids may not have grown up with them in a world where TV channels like Cartoon Network put Coyote & Roadrunner cartoons in front of audiences generations after they were first released.

If “Coyote vs. Acme” becomes theatrically profitable for Ketchup even against its higher-than-average acquisition price, it will be a testament to both the enduring power of “Looney Tunes” and the power of audience word-of-mouth to fill in the void left behind by multimillion dollar legacy studio ad campaigns. The fans got Coyote this far. Let’s see how much fuel is still left in the rocket this cartoon canine has been strapped to.