UPDATE 8/28: The score settled at 95 percent with the full review count in, and the audience score opened at 92 percent as Coyote vs. Acme took in $1.7 million in Thursday previews. Original article follows.
The movie Warner Bros. Discovery once decided was worth more as a tax write-off than a theatrical release just debuted with a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes.
The first 20 reviews for Coyote vs. Acme are in, and as of this writing, every single one is Fresh. That gives the Looney Tunes legal comedy a 100 percent Tomatometer score just 16 days before it opens August 28.
This is the same movie WBD shelved in November 2023 for a tax write-off, the third movie buried under David Zaslav after Batgirl and Scoob! Holiday Haunt, before fan backlash helped force a sale to Ketchup Entertainment for a reported $50 million.
Ketchup’s trailer already leaned into the controversy with the tagline, “The Film Acme Didn’t Want You to See.”
Now the reviews are doing the rest of the marketing for them.
Critics Are Loving Coyote vs. Acme
The early reviews are not simply positive. Some critics are putting Coyote vs. Acme alongside the best live-action/animation comedies Hollywood has made.
Metro’s Tori Brazier (5/5) calls it a new and improved Space Jam and writes, “It deserves to be a phenomenon.”
Looper’s Reuben Baron (8/10) calls it “the funniest film of 2026 so far,” while critic Zach Pope (4/5) goes even further, calling it “The best Looney Tunes Movie ever made.”
The Who Framed Roger Rabbit comparisons are already showing up too. The Weekend Warrior’s Edward Douglas (8/10) says it boasts “the best integration of animation and live-action since Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”
Danielle Solzman of Solzy at the Movies (5/5) calls it “everything one could have wanted from a feature-length Wile E. Coyote story.”
The AV Club’s Jacob Oller gives it a B and calls it “a Looney Dark Waters,” while TheWrap’s William Bibbiani says it plays like the Looney Tunes doing The Verdict and Erin Brockovich and actually earns the emotion those underdog stories are built around.
RogerEbert.com’s Brian Tallerico (3/4) also credits the movie for honoring decades of animation history without turning into nonstop fan service.
Even the more reserved reviews are still landing Fresh. Screen Rant’s Alex Harrison (6/10) says it’s no Roger Rabbit, and not even Chip n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers, but still finds it entertaining and consistently funny.
The Reviews Make Warner Bros. Look Even Worse
There was always going to be another layer to these reviews.
Coyote vs. Acme is a courtroom comedy about a corporation treating people like numbers on a spreadsheet. Warner Bros. then tried to bury the actual movie for accounting purposes.
Critics noticed the irony immediately.
Slashfilm’s Witney Seibold writes that perhaps the Warner Bros. higher-ups “saw a little too much of themselves in Acme.”
Next Best Picture’s Dan Bayer says the film is good enough to make the shelving decision look “cowardly and anti-art,” while noting that the real-life fight to save the movie only adds to its emotional impact.
Mike Ryan of The Hard Pass puts it even more simply: the fact that it’s in theaters at all feels like a victory.
That 100 Percent Score Could Be Exactly What The Movie Needs
The Rotten Tomatoes score matters for more than bragging rights.
The last two Quorum charts showed Coyote vs. Acme stuck at 27 percent awareness against 41 percent interest, the widest demand gap on the board, with zero movement in a month.
In other words, the people who know the movie exists want to see it. The problem is that too many people still don’t know it exists.
A 100 percent Rotten Tomatoes score gives Ketchup exactly the kind of headline that can spread without another massive ad buy.
The End of Oak Street debuted at 85 percent just two days before release and carried that positive review story into opening weekend. Coyote vs. Acme gets its critical boost with 16 days still left to build awareness.
James Gunn, who pitched the concept back in 2015 and produces, could use the win as much as anyone coming off Supergirl.
And there is another part of this story that is hard to ignore.
The fans fought to save this movie after its own studio decided audiences would never get to judge it for themselves, fitting the pattern we’ve documented for years of Hollywood blaming the audience when things go wrong.
The tracking already showed there was demand. Now the critics are saying the movie itself was worth saving too.
For once, the anvil landed on the studio.
Coyote vs. Acme opens in theaters August 28, directed by Dave Green and starring Will Forte, John Cena, and Lana Condor. For where it sits in the bigger picture, see our summer tracking roundup.
