The ACME Lawyer was to be the main antagonist of the unreleased 2023 hybrid legal comedy film Coyote vs. Acme, based on Ian Frazier's 1990 magazine article "Coyote v. Acme" published by The New Yorker and the Warner Bros. cartoon characters of Wile E. Coyote and the ACME Corporation from the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons.
He was going, as his name says, to serve as ACME's lawyer for a lawsuit filled by Wile E. Coyote out of frustration of ACME's technology always failing him whenever he tries to catch the Road Runner, assisted by a lawyer who was previously an intern for ACME's Lawyer, making winning the case much more personal. However, the film was shelved by Warner to obtain a $30 million tax write-down, with it being currently unknown (yet highly unlikely) it will see the light of a day.
He was portrayed by John Cena.
Biography[]
In August 2018, just as they prepared to revive the Looney Tunes brand in theathers with Space Jam: A New Legacy in 2021, Warner Bros. announced a Wile E. Coyote project named Coyote vs. Acme, with The LEGO Batman Movie director Chris McKay producing and Jon and Josh Silverman writing the screenplay, though they were later all later replaced in those duties by Samy Burch, Jeremy Slater and James Gunn, with Dave Green coming onboard as director. Basing the story on the "Coyote v. Acme" magazine article written by Ian Frazier and published by The New Yorker in 1990, the script was about how Wile E. Coyote becomes fed up with the ACME Corporation's products always failing him every time he attempts to catch the Road Runner so he resolves to fill a lawsuit against ACME. To do so, Wile hires an unlucky (just like him) human lawyer, but it turns out that ACME's Lawyer is no one else but the former boss of Wile E. Coyote's Lawyer, making the case much more personal.
In February 2022, former WWE wrestler and actor John Cena was announced to have been cast as ACME's Lawyer, presumably due to his past collaborations with Gunn in the DC Extended Universe productions The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker. Like Wile E. Coyote's Lawyer, ACME's would have been a human being as well and, because of the Twitter posts of background actor/extra Steven Ray Byrd (who has provided the image of this page), it's known he was going to be in charge of the ACME Corporation's legal team. It can be presumed that during the courtroom scenes, ACME's Lawyer and Wile E. Coyote's Lawyer would have brought different animated characters from the Looney Tunes franchises as witnesses, which Green hinted by mentioning on his Twitter the chunk of cameo appearances different Merry Melodies characters make in the film.
Unfortunately, Warner Bros. opted to delay Coyote vs. Acme indefinitely in favour of releasing Barbie in their original July 2023 release date. While Barbie was a huge success critically and commercially, Warner didn't bother to announce a new release date for their Looney Tunes project and ultimately Warner Bros. Discovery announced in November 2023 that they wouldn't release the film but shelve it like they had done with Batgirl and Scoob! Holiday Haunt in favour of getting a $30 million tax write-down. This caused a extremely negative uproar in Hollywood (especially after reports that Warner's controversial CEO David Zaslav didn't bother to see the film), with several filmmakers who had seen test screenings of the film (like Phil Lord and Christopher Miller) deeming it funny and amazing, leading to several petitions and movements to save the film, even by Looney Tunes voice actor Eric Bauza, who has lots of roles in the film, and by Byrd. Unfortunately, Warner Bros.'s offers to sell the film to other studios like Amazon or Netflix haven't succeeded due to the huge prices demanded, so it's highly unlikely right now we will ever see Coyote vs. Acme, though Eric Bauza has recently said in 2025 that if we all see The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie in theaters and make it a success, then maybe there's still a chance to save the film and there fire find out what was going to do the ACME Lawyer and if he would have succeeded in his goals or not.
Trivia[]
- Unlike several of his fellow co-stars, despite being saddened that Coyote vs. Acme may never see the light of the day, John Cena has been quoted as justifying Warner Bros.'s decision to never release the film under the rationale that Warner knows best in businesses and is their film after all, acknowledging some may feel otherwise due to all the heart they put on the project.