Coyote vs. ACME deliberately rejects the usual live-action Looney Tunes formula by treating its animated characters as ordinary members of a shared human-cartoon society rather than as famous performers. Director Dave Green and screenwriter Samy Burch say this approach helps the film feel more like an extended classic cartoon while supporting its central legal story of Wile E. Coyote suing ACME over its defective products.

The film follows Coyote and his reluctant lawyer, Kevin Avery, played by Will Forte, as they confront ACME’s counsel Buddy Crane, played by John Cena. Green revisited Chuck Jones’s original Coyote shorts and worked with experienced Looney Tunes artists to preserve a version of the character who is both clever and foolish: a lonely, hungry desert figure obsessively trying to catch the Road Runner. The film reached cinemas after Warner Bros. Discovery shelved it, before public pressure and distributor Ketchup Entertainment helped secure its release.