#remember batgirl and coyote vs acme

[epicwin64]

David Zaslav hates animation

David Zaslav hates video games

David Zaslav hates preservation

David Zaslav hates ART. Fixed it for you.

They're doing it with video games now :/

[cc-tinslebee]

sorry gang, emotional about Yuri!!! on Ice again bc I’m cosplaying Victor for a con real soon + on my third rewatch, but it breaks my heart as both a fan and a filmmaking major that we’re really in an era where companies spend a fortune on film projects only to refuse to release them to the public :/

Ice Adolescence, Coyote vs. Acme, the Batgirl movie — projects that people were excited for and had so much heart put into them, just taken away from the creators and fans alike.

I really hope that by some miracle, there comes a day where these films see the light of day. I remember hearing that the OG Doctor Who episodes were largely thrown out by studios to make space for new content, but that some (now former) employees took them home and they still exist somewhere. Wishful thinking, but one can hope :(

[silveragelovechild]

“Coyote vs. Acme” isn’t the first movie that Warner Brothers has shelved because it was more profitable to shelve it than release it (remember “Batgirl?).

Have we passed into a Bizarro parallel universe where up is down and left is right? And studios don’t release movies?!?

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

Two posts ago, I wrote...

Does it convince Warner Bros. heads to dust off COYOTE VS. ACME? Does it convince studios to make more 2D films? As for that first one, I have no idea. That is, if it didn’t factually get Zas'ed and could see a release. It’s been unclear since spring 2024, I feel. The asking price for it ballooned past $70m as far as I know, and that’s a number I don’t see EARTH BLEW UP making worldwide.

But I’ll happily wish to be proven wrong on all of that.

...

Pinch me!

Well look at that...

This little Ketchup Entertainment company out here doing more for the Looney Tunes, an American institution coming up on its 95th anniversary, than their owners - Warner Bros. Discovery - have been. Warner Bros., of course, having originated the Looney Tunes to begin with. How about that?

Ketchup's plan is to buy COYOTE VS. ACME outright, for around $50m, and give it a theatrical release some time in 2026. Some three years after completion, quite the gap. I'd imagine the marketing campaign behind it being "The Looney Tunes Movie you almost never saw!" "ACME tried to cover this up!"

Deadline says nothing is set in stone, and that there's a chance things fall through, "but it’s heading in the right direction." Fingers crossed!

As we all know, Ketchup came to the rescue of another abandoned Looney Tunes movie, the lower-budget intended-for-Max THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP. Max was at one point intended to be the home for COYOTE VS. ACME as well, until it was decided to up it to theatrical status... Only for it to lose that, and maybe even a chance at being seen. As for EARTH BLEW UP, as I'm sure you know, that's currently playing on big screens. Likely somewhere near you, too. While it only collected $3m on its opening weekend, that's not stopping Ketchup for sinking its teeth into COYOTE VS. ACME. They must have the dough, I assume. This company previously released films such as Michael Mann's FERRARI, HYPNOTIC, and what appears to be a Hellboy ashcan film.

And if anything, we still gotta remember the work GFM Animation put in when acquiring THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP from Warner last year and shopping it around for buyers, GFM wanted for it to be a theatrical release to some degree. It was their dedication that landed the picture's U.S. distribution in Ketchup's hands, in addition to European distributors a year ago. Now look where we are.

Looks like Warner Bros. ultimately didn't tax write-off black hole COYOTE VS. ACME after all, because this wouldn't be on the table if that were the case. Whereas SCOOB! HOLIDAY HAUNT and BATGIRL, those were made unreleasable, so I'm not sure a similar thing could happen to one of those. SCOOB! would be the likelier of the two to get saved because BATGIRL was of the old DCEU, which hard resets - on the live-action end of things - in a few months w/ James Gunn's SUPERMAN. So far, there don't seem to be any movie plans with Scooby-Doo, but there certainly will be some time in the future. SCOOB! HOLIDAY HAUNT served as a prequel to 2020's SCOOB!, an intended launchpad to an animated Hanna-Barbera movieverse that didn't really materialize, so I don't see it getting saved either.

That's a big problem whenever there's a merger or administration change at these big studios. The stuff made under the previous regime is usually ignored, or treated like a bandaid to be ripped YEOUCH! Like how MGM didn't give much love to THE SECRET OF NIMH when releasing it in the summer of 1982, a little after they had bought their distributor United Artists. Or how Warner Bros. bought Turner in the mid-90s, and just dumped Turner Animation's debut picture CATS DON'T DANCE in the early spring of 1997. There are always those pictures that just get dropped, no confidence is in them, etc. The ones that don't line up with the future agenda of the new leaders. COYOTE VS. ACME was of the AT&T-era Warner, made during a different administration of what used to be called Warner Animation Group. After Zaslav, it became Warner Bros. Pictures Animation, former DreamWorks exec Bill Damaschke became the new creative leader, and the first film bearing the logo - THE CAT IN THE HAT - is presumably less than a year away from release. (Currently scheduled for March 6, 2026, the same day as Pixar's HOPPERS.) CAT's the relaunch of Warner animated movies right there. This iteration of Warner theatrical animation also has a "super secret" Looney Tunes project of their own in development for a possible 2028 release, so that acts as their replacement of sorts for the Looney Tunes movie that was already in the works when they came in. So they're not done with Looney Tunes, they just scrapped two movies they didn't launch. David Zaslav's tactics are a rather extreme version of these usual transitional pains, opting to just straight up lock movies away and offload other projects (like this, DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP, and BATMAN: CAPED CRUSADER).

Hell, imagine if Warner had sold stuff like HOLIDAY HAUNT to a Ketchup-esque company in 2022, if not Ketchup themselves? Instead of writing them off? Would've been a better way for them to get those off their hands than what they ended up doing.

But in the end, you don't mess with the Looney Tunes!

So yeah, it's a massive win if the ketchup gets the coyote. Any little thing we can have in these hell-times for everyone and for the animation industry and peoples' hard work, is a big plus by me.

[seikotakai]

The Uzumaki Anime Adaptation Tragedy (alternative title: modern wb needs to be stopped)

I remember seeing the trailers for adult swim/Toonami's anime adaptation for Uzumaki (the iconic Junji Ito horror manga, not Naruto's clan who is sadly wasted potential like the Kazama clan from Tekken). I was hype (albeit cautiously hype considering disappointing anime adaptations like Berserk 2016/2017 and how the Naruto anime by Studio Pierrot butchered some characters like Sakura Haruno). I never actually got to watch the anime because I was playing Street Fighter 6, watching bleach tybw cour 3, and also life got a little busy sometimes. Then I saw a news article on Anime News Network saying the Uzumaki anime was a disaster and I just had to look online to see what happened to the Uzumaki anime. Why after so many years of development hell, did it just end up being another disappointment like Duke Nukem Forever or Shenmue III. I saw one video and there was a name and a company i did not expect to see. Fucking W**NER B*OS and D*vid Z*slav. Now everything makes perfect sense. For those of you who don't know, W**ner B*os in recent years has pissed off pretty much everyone. First back in 2019 W**ner B*os pissed off the entire FGC/Fighting Game Community by retconning fan favorite Mortal Kombat character Sindel's entire personality and story hence the tag #NotMySindel. Thankfully, in MK1 they backpedal that awful decision and Sindel is back to her true self (hell we even get an entire scene of Sindel reacting to her shitty MK11 ending and being upset). Next in 2022 W**ner B*os pissed off pretty much so many fans of cartoons with the now infamous HBO Max disaster where they got rid of a bunch of beloved animated TV shows with good reviews because they don't make bank like the soulless shitty reality tv shows Z*slav loves so much. Oh, and then they also slapped the shitty Velma TV series onto HBO max which is a complete and utter disgrace to the Scooby Doo franchise. Then they cancelled many movies which were basically complete like Batgirl and Coyote Vs Acme (although I heard Batgirl wasn't going to be good. Coyote Vs Acme on the other hand deserved better). Now they pissed off anime/manga fans. Episode 1 of Uzumaki was amazing from what I have heard. Then it all went downhill from episode 2 onwards when they got rid of the original animation studio and replaced them with a new one. I get critical towards Katsuhiro Harada at times (ex. his extreme favoritism for his favorite character Heihachi ever since Tekken 6/7 and how he lies to fans sometimes), but at least he can still make decent/good games. D*vid Z**lav actually needs to be fired. Uzumaki deserved so much better too, we were SO CLOSE to a perfect/at least decent adaptation of the Uzumaki manga by Junji Ito. anyways, rant over. going to go back to playing sf6 for a bit.

[z0uz]

remember, if you want to hate david zaslav, don't do it only for the cancellation of ofmd. think about all the finished projects that were shot and edited and had good reviews from test screenings, like batgirl and coyote vs acme, but became lost media just because some rich guys said so.

warner bros is slowly killing themselves and art with it

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

I'll relate two Warner Bros.-related stories...

Right now, Olan Rogers - creator of FINAL SPACE - is urging fans to "pirate the crap out of" his show. A show, that had been running for a few seasons up unto that point, black-holed by David Zaslav. Hard to find anywhere officially or legally... Pirating is pretty much one of the only ways you can watch it now. Imagine that, a whole actually-released show... Now perpetually unavailable because "tax write-offs".

God this guy enrages me-

You know what this reminds me?

In early 1977, musician Frank Zappa was nearing the end of his contract with Warner Bros. Records. He had already been fed up with them for a few reasons (such as them using his royalty checks to fund Captain Beefheart's album BAT CHAIN PULLER, which ended up being scrapped anyways), even hung banners during tours reading "Warner Bros. Sucks!"

He owed them four more albums and would be able to jump ship to another record label, so... He sent four separate albums to them. All at once, or all around the same time: ZAPPA IN NEW YORK, a 2-LP live album was the first of these. Then there was STUDIO TAN, HOT RATS III, and ORCHESTRAL FAVORITES. Warner were supposed to pay him and get the releases of the albums ready upon delivery, but they didn't, which Zappa rightfully saw as a breach of the contract. Warner also had issues with tracks on ZAPPA IN NEW YORK referencing guitarist Punky Meadows, fearing that they'd be libelous.

A legal can of worms opened, and Zappa felt - since Warner did not pay for the material nor agree to release it - that he could bring it all to another label and start anew. Zappa reimagined the four separate albums and decided to combine most of the tracks from each, and new material and linking tracks, use different mixes/performances of certain tracks... and cobble them into a 4-LP epic called LÄTHER. He and Mercury/Phonogram planned to release this sprawling, exhaustive musical odyssey on Halloween of 1977... Warner Bros. were able to put a stop to that, claiming they had first rights to the music on it.

Luckily, Mercury got as far as making test pressings of the album.

In December 1977, Zappa took a test pressing of LÄTHER to an L.A. radio station called KROQ-FM. In addition to a rant about Warner Bros. "trying to ruin his darn career", Zappa played the entire 2 1/2-hour album... And right before that, he...

TOLD LISTENERS TO TAPE IT OFF THE RADIO. Free! Can't beat that price!

And thus, LÄTHER was the world's, no matter how much Warner Bros. tried to stop it. Bootlegs were struck very quickly from the radio broadcast.

Warner Bros. eventually released the four separate albums that Zappa handed to them in early 1977, releasing two in 1978 and the other two in 1979. They also took it upon themselves to censor the ZAPPA IN NEW YORK release. Another breach of contract, tampering with the material.

LÄTHER, as Zappa configured it in mid-1977, would eventually be released in 1996, three years after Zappa's passing. It's available alongside the four separate albums in his massive catalogue. So, there's a happy ending there.

Sometimes, you gotta play dirty in order to beat these fucking companies and all this capitalist mumbojumbo. Maybe a leaked COYOTE VS. ACME could do the same for that ill-fated movie. Ditto SCOOB! HOLIDAY HAUNT and BATGIRL. Remember how SCOOBY-DOO AND KRYPTO, TOO! got leaked following allegations that it was gonna be tax write-off'ed? And then Warner eventually released the thing?

Subvert the machine and get the thing out, whichever way you can.

And yeah, it goes to show that Warner has a history of dinguses running the show. Film or records or other divisions.