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The Indicator from Planet Money

Coyote vs. Acme finally gets its big break

August 27, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Coyote vs. Acme finally gets its big break

In 2020, screenwriter Sammy Birch sat at a long table on the Warner Brothers lot, facing a row of executives for a final interview to write the movie Coyote vs. Acme. She got the job. She and director Dave Green and producer Chris deFaria spent hours pinning hundreds of note cards to a posterboard, building the outline and tone of a film about Wile E. Coyote suing the Acme Company for supplying the faulty equipment behind his failed schemes to catch the Road Runner. Big names signed on: Will Forte, John Cena, Lana Condor. The movie wrapped in 2022, with a release date set for 2023.

Then, while Sammy was at a dress fitting for the premiere of her other hit film May December, her manager called. The word he used was "destroyed." The movie had been axed. It wouldn't be destroyed in the end, but Coyote vs. Acme would spend three years in cinematic limbo before finally coming out on Friday. The story of how it fell and rose again reveals a lot about the strange economics of Hollywood.

The spreadsheet and the gut

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (00:01) **Sammy Birch gets hired for Coyote vs. Acme** - Screenwriter Sammy Birch recalls her pitch meeting and the early creative process, including a posterboard covered in note cards.
  • 2 (01:05) **The movie is completed, then suddenly shelved** - The film wrapped in 2022 with a 2023 release date, but was abruptly axed while Sammy was preparing for another premiere.
  • 3 (02:11) **What the saga reveals about Hollywood economics** - The hosts frame the episode as an update on a story from 2023, exploring how Coyote's fall and rise reflects the weird world of movie business economics.
  • 4 (03:22) **Producer Chris Taria's background and love for animation** - Chris, a veteran producer of films like *Gravity* and *Mad Max: Fury Road*, explains his soft spot for animation and inspiration from *Who Framed Roger Rabbit*.
  • 5 (04:29) **The curious economics of movie-making** - Chris describes how studios greenlight films based on projections, but also on "gut" and a willingness to take risks on potential magic.
  • 6 (05:05) **Warner Bros. Discovery merger and the new CEO's cost-cutting** - The merger with Discovery left the studio laden with debt, and CEO David Zaslav began shelving completed films.
  • 7 (06:57) **Chris Taria's shock and the film's limbo** - Chris had never seen a movie shelved this way in his Hollywood career, but he continued to hold out hope.

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Show Notes

Coyote vs. Acme will finally get its theatrical release on Friday after a years-long saga involving supposed tax write-downs, negotiations and multibillion-dollar studio deals. It's a drama almost straight out of a Hollywood screenplay. Today we have the story from the inside. This episode is an update of an episode from December 2023.

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

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