Coyote vs. Acme opened with an estimated $15.5 million in U.S. and Canadian theaters this weekend. That put the Looney Tunes comedy in second place behind Spider-Man: Brand New Day, but it also gave independent distributor Ketchup Entertainment its biggest opening ever.
The number matters because the movie almost never reached an audience. Warner Bros. shelved the completed film in 2023, and Ketchup later bought the distribution rights. After years of fans asking to see it, Wile E. Coyote finally has a box-office result attached to the story.
The comeback has a real opening weekend now
The opening is not a blockbuster-sized total, and it should not be presented as one. Coyote vs. Acme was released near the end of summer, with less marketing than a Warner Bros. rollout would normally receive. Still, $15.5 million is a meaningful start for a distributor whose previous opening record belonged to The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, which began with $3.1 million in 2024.
The film also had to compete with a movie that has spent five weekends at the top of the chart. Spider-Man: Brand New Day earned $22.2 million domestically this weekend and has now passed $2.3 billion worldwide, leaving Coyote vs. Acme to fight for attention in a very crowded family and animation market.
Why Ketchup Entertainment is calling this a win
Ketchup did not inherit a normal studio release. It bought a finished movie that had already become a symbol of the streaming era’s most frustrating habit: a production can be complete, tested, and still vanish because the accounting decision around it changes. The distributor then had to make the film visible again without pretending that its history was the only reason to buy a ticket.
The $15.5 million debut gives Ketchup a useful answer. The audience was not only curious about the canceled-movie story; enough people paid to see the comedy in theaters. The result does not prove that every shelved production would work the same way, but it does show why a completed film can still have value outside the balance sheet that first buried it.
Early reactions give it a chance to keep playing
Coyote vs. Acme is also arriving with unusually strong early reception. The film earned an A CinemaScore from opening-weekend audiences, while Rotten Tomatoes lists a 95 percent critics score and a 94 percent audience score in the early results reported by TheWrap. Those numbers can move as more reviews and ratings arrive, but they give the movie a better chance of holding through the Labor Day frame.
The tone of the reviews is part of the story. Viewers are responding to the courtroom setup, the live-action and animation mix, and the simple pleasure of seeing Wile E. treated as a character who can finally push back. That does not turn the film into something it is not; it gives audiences a reason to talk about the movie itself instead of only discussing the Warner Bros. decision.
The release campaign became part of the movie
The road to theaters supplied Ketchup with a story no ordinary comedy could manufacture. Fans had already spent years posting about the canceled release, and the new campaign could acknowledge that frustration while selling the movie’s actual premise: a lawsuit against the company behind every failed trap.
That balance helped the film avoid becoming a memorial. The trailers and posters still foreground Wile E., Kevin Avery, Buddy Crane, and the Acme gadgets. The release story adds a reason to care, but the movie has to stand on its own once the lights go down.
What the opening weekend does not settle
A good start does not tell us whether Coyote vs. Acme will become profitable, earn a sequel, or change how studios handle completed projects. The reported production budget sits far above the opening weekend, and theatrical revenue is split with exhibitors. Ketchup’s acquisition price and marketing costs also are not a public profit report.
There is also no official streaming date yet. The distributor’s current pages point audiences toward theaters, so any specific home-release date circulating online should be treated as unconfirmed. The immediate question is whether strong word of mouth can carry the film into the next weekend.
For now, Coyote vs. Acme has done the hardest part: it escaped the vault. The $15.5 million opening gives the movie a measurable audience, gives Ketchup a clear win to build on, and lets viewers decide whether the long-running Acme joke works as a full-length story.
Coyote vs. Acme is now playing in U.S. theaters. Our earlier release guide covers the cast, rating, runtime, and current availability details.
