There’s a story in The Hollywood Reporter that says Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz (X-Men: Days of Future Past) are writing a screenplay for an Acme movie, inspired by the fictional company seen in “Looney Tunes” cartoons featuring the likes of Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner and Daffy Duck with Steve Carell attached to star. Additionally, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, who directed Carell in Crazy Stupid Love, are being courted to director for Warner Bros. But this isn’t what’s interesting to me.
The site reports the film, which will be a CG/live-action hybrid won’t actually center on “Looney Tunes” characters and it’s being looked at as an event movie that will also launch a franchise. Without any actual plot details it simply sounds to me like they are going to try and find ways of introducing a variety of “Looney Tunes” characters so as to not only be able to create an Acme sequel, but a series of spin-offs for everyone from Wile E. Coyote to Bugs Bunny. I get it, but damn, how much further down this hole must we go before we find the bottom?
This project first started coming together back in 2010 with The Lego Movie screenwriters Kevin and Dan Hageman, pitching an idea to center a film around the fictional ACME warehouse “in a tone that recalls the Amblin pics of the 1980s or a Men in Black-style movie.”
All that said, I’m still not sure I see exactly how this can go, though I guess it could center around a story wherein Wile E. Coyote buys a bomb to kill the Road Runner, but it backfires in his face and he eventually sues ACME and gains majority control of the company, but struggles since he can’t talk, being only able hold up signs that read “Help!” Ultimately he drives the company into the ground, putting several cartoon characters out of a job and on unemployment, which ultimately forces a fragile government close to the brink of collapse with only one last resort… The Purge: Killing Bugs Bunny. Just a thought.
