Screenings are being set up this week for streamers Amazon Prime Video, Apple and Netflix to check out and potentially acquire Warner Bros‘ axed Looney Tunes movie Coyote vs. Acme after the studio’s phone ran off the hook the entire weekend from angry filmmakers and talent reps over their third feature film kill after Batgirl and Scoob Holiday Haunt!
The more egregious Hollywood sin with Coyote vs. Acme is that it’s a finished film was intended for a theatrical release, while the other two movies were still in the works.
Of those kicking the tires, even though no deals have been drafted, I hear Amazon is a leading contender given the fact that Courtenay Valenti, the Head of Film, Streaming and Theatrical for Amazon Studios and MGM, was a big champion and linchpin for the movie while she was President of Production and Development at Warner Bros. All of this boils down to Head of Amazon Studios Jen Salke’s signoff, I understand. During the pandemic, Prime Video acquired Sony’s family titles Hotel Transylvania 4 and Cinderella, among other movies. Amazon has been known to take finished films off the table for $100M and turn them into events for Prime Video
With the actors strike just ending and everyone — streamers and the theatrical schedule — in need of product, it seems foolish to have a studio like Warners leave a branded asset like Coyote vs. Acme lying around and taking a $30M take write-off on the $70M production. With Amazon now in the theatrical game, it will be interesting to see if Warner Bros actually allows the streamer to theatrically release Coyote vs. Acme since the Burbank lot is too cheap to do so, given its dire financial straits.
Amazon also is a great landing pad for Coyote vs. Acme as the studio has three upcoming movies with its star John Cena: Heads of State, Ricky Stanicky and Grand Death Lotto.
Also, during a very noisy weekend for the movie on social media with Coyote vs. Acme and Gravity Oscar winning composer calling Warner Bros. “bizarre anti-art studio financial shenanigans I will never understand,” some have told me that the killing of Coyote vs. Acme didn’t come from WBD CEO David Zaslav himself. Rather, the blame should be set at the feet of Warner Bros. Motion Picture bosses Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy and Warner Bros. new Animation Head Bill Damaschke, who are being made the scapegoats. The motives here were to protect the Looney Tunes IP and also scrub the studio of product developed by the previous administration.
The only thing wrong with that narrative is that De Luca and Abdy never have had any previous offends of killing a previous administration’s films or finished movies. Not until landing at Warner Bros. As my mother use to say, “There’s no such thing as a coincidence.”
Also, we understand that De Luca and Abdy haven’t seen the finished Coyote vs. Acme.
Furthermore, it’s not a motion picture executive’s job to care about tax write-offs for the company. That directive comes from finance and accounting. Even when he was at New Line, De Luca didn’t close down the besieged $90M Warren Beatty trainwreck Town & Country, and if there ever was a movie that went off the rails, it was that one. Why would these movie executives, who have longstanding relationships with talent reps, want to get a reputation that they could kill a movie at any given notice?
deadline.com
The more egregious Hollywood sin with Coyote vs. Acme is that it’s a finished film was intended for a theatrical release, while the other two movies were still in the works.
Of those kicking the tires, even though no deals have been drafted, I hear Amazon is a leading contender given the fact that Courtenay Valenti, the Head of Film, Streaming and Theatrical for Amazon Studios and MGM, was a big champion and linchpin for the movie while she was President of Production and Development at Warner Bros. All of this boils down to Head of Amazon Studios Jen Salke’s signoff, I understand. During the pandemic, Prime Video acquired Sony’s family titles Hotel Transylvania 4 and Cinderella, among other movies. Amazon has been known to take finished films off the table for $100M and turn them into events for Prime Video
With the actors strike just ending and everyone — streamers and the theatrical schedule — in need of product, it seems foolish to have a studio like Warners leave a branded asset like Coyote vs. Acme lying around and taking a $30M take write-off on the $70M production. With Amazon now in the theatrical game, it will be interesting to see if Warner Bros actually allows the streamer to theatrically release Coyote vs. Acme since the Burbank lot is too cheap to do so, given its dire financial straits.
Amazon also is a great landing pad for Coyote vs. Acme as the studio has three upcoming movies with its star John Cena: Heads of State, Ricky Stanicky and Grand Death Lotto.
Also, during a very noisy weekend for the movie on social media with Coyote vs. Acme and Gravity Oscar winning composer calling Warner Bros. “bizarre anti-art studio financial shenanigans I will never understand,” some have told me that the killing of Coyote vs. Acme didn’t come from WBD CEO David Zaslav himself. Rather, the blame should be set at the feet of Warner Bros. Motion Picture bosses Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy and Warner Bros. new Animation Head Bill Damaschke, who are being made the scapegoats. The motives here were to protect the Looney Tunes IP and also scrub the studio of product developed by the previous administration.
The only thing wrong with that narrative is that De Luca and Abdy never have had any previous offends of killing a previous administration’s films or finished movies. Not until landing at Warner Bros. As my mother use to say, “There’s no such thing as a coincidence.”
Also, we understand that De Luca and Abdy haven’t seen the finished Coyote vs. Acme.
Furthermore, it’s not a motion picture executive’s job to care about tax write-offs for the company. That directive comes from finance and accounting. Even when he was at New Line, De Luca didn’t close down the besieged $90M Warren Beatty trainwreck Town & Country, and if there ever was a movie that went off the rails, it was that one. Why would these movie executives, who have longstanding relationships with talent reps, want to get a reputation that they could kill a movie at any given notice?
‘Coyote Vs. Acme’: Warner Bros Setting Up Screenings For Streamers Of Axed Looney Tunes Film; Amazon A Prime Candidate – The Dish
EXCLUSIVE: Screenings are being set up this week for streamers Amazon Prime Video, Apple and Netflix to check out and potentially acquire Warner Bros’ axed Looney Tunes movie Coyote vs. Acme …
deadline.com