‘Coyote vs. Acme’ Foreshadows Hollywood’s Very Depressing Future

According to its own self-mythology, the entertainment industry is something far grander, more poetic and noble, than just a titanic money-maker. Our beloved movies and TV shows—Hollywood’s “products,” if we must call them that—are the sum of our cultural imagination, collective dreams that mesmerize and inspire.

Unfortunately, that sentiment rarely seems to last when studios start looking at their balance sheets. Just ask the filmmakers behind Coyote vs. Acme.

Last November, The Wrap and Rolling Stone reported that Warner Bros. Discovery planned to shelf Coyote vs. Acme—a live action/animated comedy starring Will Forte and the Looney Tunes character Wile E. Coyote—in exchange for a tax write-off. Days later, The Wrap claimed that, thanks to public outcry, the studio had changed its tune and invited the filmmakers to shop their project around to potential buyers. By February, however, the same publication reported that the company wanted $75-$80 million for the film and had rejected “handsome” offers from companies including Netflix, Amazon, and Paramount without allowing them to make counter-offers.

Read more at The Daily Beast.