Coyote vs. Acme: Animated Film Written Off by Warner Bros. Discovery for Tax Purposes Unexpectedly Grosses Over $100 Million

An animated film that Warner Bros. Discovery once pulled from its release schedule and booked as a tax write-off has unexpectedly become a box-office phenomenon. Coyote vs. Acme, shelved roughly three years ago, has crossed $100 million in worldwide gross after independent distributor Ketchup Entertainment brought it back to theaters. The result has reignited debate over the decision by CEO David Zaslav, who chose to write off the asset rather than release it. Coyote vs. Acme is a live-action/animation hybrid centered on Wile E. Coyote from the Looney Tunes franchise. The film completed production but was removed from Warner Bros. Discovery's release slate amid a large-scale cost-cutting campaign under Zaslav. Instead of sending the title to theaters, management booked it as a write-off, turning a finished asset into a tax tool. According to published reports, Coyote vs. Acme cost about $70 million to produce. When Warner Bros. Discovery decided not to release it, Ketchup Entertainment paid $50 million for distribution rights. The independent distributor then pre-sold rights in several international territories to offset costs — a common strategy for reducing risk on large deals. The film's current worldwide box office is reported above $100 million, with North America contributing $59.8 million and international markets the remaining $42 million. In its opening weekend in late August, it grossed $15.9 million domestically. That is seen as a strong start for a film abandoned by its own owner. For comparison, another Looney Tunes title, The Day the Earth Blew Up, grossed only about $15.4 million worldwide. The gap makes Coyote vs. Acme's performance stand out, though analysts note that the two projects' release scale and marketing budgets differ, so direct comparison should be treated with caution. Coyote vs. Acme is not an isolated case. Warner Bros. Discovery previously applied similar treatment to Batgirl and Scoob! Holiday Haunt — completed titles removed from release to be written down. The repetition suggests this may be part of a portfolio-restructuring strategy rather than a one-off error. A tax write-off essentially removes an asset's book value and records it as a loss to reduce tax liability. For a finished but unreleased film, it eases short-term financial pressure. But it also means giving up any revenue the asset could have generated — a trade-off observers consider worth weighing. The film's success elsewhere has reopened the debate over Zaslav's decision. Many argue Warner Bros. Discovery lost a valuable asset. Yet the reports themselves flag an important caveat: had the studio self-released, it would have also carried prints-and-advertising costs — expenses Ketchup Entertainment had to bear. So the $100 million-plus gross does not equal a corresponding net profit, and direct comparison is incomplete. Shawn Robbins, an analyst at Box Office Theory, is cited in related reports. Observers note that the question of whether Warner Bros. Discovery would have earned more by self-releasing is counterfactual and cannot be verified from available data. That is the crux that makes the debate hard to settle. The film stars Will Forte and John Cena, faces that help drive its appeal. That a project once written off can still draw audiences shows the commercial value of the Looney Tunes brand remains intact. More broadly, the Coyote vs. Acme case illustrates a familiar principle in entertainment: established intellectual property — especially family-friendly brands — retains commercial appeal even after being abandoned by its own parent company. An IP's value does not vanish because of an accounting decision. The emergence of independent distributors like Ketchup Entertainment also points to a notable trend: when large conglomerates narrow their slates, opportunities open for smaller, more agile players. By acquiring rights at a fraction of their potential value, Ketchup Entertainment turned an abandoned asset into a profitable deal. Information in this article is compiled from reports by Variety and The Express Tribune. Some financial figures remain described as "reportedly," and much of the information has not been independently verified, so it should be cross-checked before use for investment or in-depth analysis. The Coyote vs. Acme story raises a larger question for the film industry: do tax-driven write-off decisions truly deliver long-term value, or merely hand a potential revenue stream to someone else? When a discarded film succeeds elsewhere, the lesson about properly valuing intellectual property becomes hard to ignore.