The animated/live-action Looney Tunes hybrid comedy Coyote Vs. Acme is finally seeing the light of day three years after Warner Bros. Discovery shelved the movie for a tax write-off. Distributor Ketchup Entertainment had previously released The Day The Earth Blew Up, the first all-animated Looney Tunes feature, which was also initially shelved by WB. For cinephiles and Tunes fans alike, the release of these two filmsseems miraculous, since both embattled movies will finally reach audiences in versions that reflect their creators’ original visions. The same couldn’t be said, though, for the last time the Tunes hit the big screen in an original film. In fact, director Joe Dante tells The A.V. Club that Warner Bros. only released 2003’s Looney Tunes: Back In Action “because they spent so much money to make it.”
On paper, it seemed like a no-brainer to hire Dante (Gremlins, Small Soldiers), a cartoon lover among cartoon lovers, to direct a Looney Tunes film. But that passion didn’t make it into Looney Tunes: Back In Action, which lacks Dante and his cartoon stars’ signature antic wit. So why was this particular Looney Tunes project micro-managed to death? Why has Dante repeatedly called the film “the longest year and a half of my life”? Does anything in Looney Tunes: Back In Action still reflect Dante and his collaborators’ obvious affection for Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and their fellow wisecracking ‘toons?
Looney Tunes: Back In Action was the first original feature starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and their cartoon pals since the soulless but profitable Space Jam. Other planned Space Jam sequels fell through, including a basketball-themed sequel with Michael Jordan and a Jackie Chan genre mashup called Spy Jam. By sheer morbid coincidence, the production of Looney Tunes: Back In Action also began one month after the death of formative Looney Tunes writer-director Chuck Jones.
Dante is a big Jones fan (Jones makes a cameo in Gremlins), and he’d even written an unproduced behind-the-scenes comedy called Termite Terrace, a playful homage to Jones’ time working on the Looney Tunes cartoons. Dante also shared Jones’ disdain for Space Jam since, according to Dante, it didn’t “adhere to [Jones’] view of what the characters should be like.” WB wouldn’t make Termite Terrace, but they were eager to make another Space Jam. Dante, on the other hand, wanted to make “the anti-Space Jam.”
“I frankly didn’t think the [Back In Action] script was very good,” Dante says. “But I did think that if I didn’t make it, somebody who was gonna dance to Warner Bros.’ tune would, and it’s gonna be another Space Jam-ish movie. So my goal was to make something that I thought Chuck would like.”
Dante soon found himself caught between the demands of the studio’s marketing and merchandising reps, who were mainly concerned with how to sell the Looney Tunes characters, and the heads of WB, whom Dante says, “had no affection or interest in these characters or this project.” Rewrites continued through the summer of 2003, when the movie was originally scheduled to be released, and only stopped about a month before its revised November premiere.
Jokes were endlessly rewritten by an estimated 29 writers, all but one of whom went uncredited and most of whom didn’t seem to know what they were doing. An Oscar-winning screenwriter was asked for his feedback, and started by asking if Bugs Bunny has to say, “What’s up, doc?” “And that was just the first hour of the meeting,” Dante sighs. Sometimes, after thoroughly rewriting jokes and plot points, Dante and his colleagues returned to what was written in the first place. He adds that the version of the movie that was eventually released had a completely different beginning, middle, and end. “It was a real boondoggle,” Dante says. But unlike recent Tunes endeavors under the current WBD administration, shelving the project never seemed likely, since the studio kept throwing money at the production: “They’ve got an investment to protect,” Dante explains. But that didn’t mean the film was safe.
Original screenwriter Larry Doyle left the production after a year following disagreements about characterizations, gags, and a slew of other changes. Doyle didn’t see eye-to-eye with Dante or animation director Eric Goldberg, and tensions eventually got so bad that, according to Dante, a typical brainstorming session couldn’t begin until Doyle left the room. “Larry is a very abrasive guy,” Dante says, even though he was loyal to the Tune philosophy. “He was adamant about having the characters be true to themselves.”
Dante also almost quit, but didn’t. “When you’ve put in as much work as it takes to direct anything it’s pretty hard to leave it unfinished,” he says. But he described the WB he worked with on Back In Action as a bifurcated organization at war with itself, split between “the half who cares about what they’re doing, and the other half who cares about making money and has no respect for the people who make the movies.”
The movie’s convoluted story—Bugs Bunny (Joe Alaskey) chases Daffy Duck (also Alaskey) across Nevada with his human pals, aspiring stuntman Damian “D.J.” Drake (Brendan Fraser) and brand-obsessed studio stooge Kate Houghton (Jenna Elfman)—was majorly overhauled following a negative test screening. Costly reshoots were then ordered by the studio, who added, among other things, a new concluding half-hour set in outer space, which was shot, but ultimately not used. “[The new ending] didn’t help,” Dante said. “It didn’t hurt either, it just wasn’t as good as what we had.” If nothing else, it contributed to the film’s oversized budget, which The New York Times estimated ran higher than $100 million.
“I don’t think the makers of [The Day The Earth Blew Up and Coyote Vs. Acme] got the same kind of pushback,” Dante says. “Once the movies were greenlit, the studio people likely said: ‘Okay, go ahead, make your movie, and then we’ll decide whether we want it.'”
Ironically, Dante and the writers received no feedback about their corporate-critical human characters—whether that was Kate and her defining obsessions with branding and “synergy,” or Steve Martin’s clueless Acme executive Mr. Chairman, whom Martin has described as a “supertwit.” Bugs and the other animated characters, on the other hand, received scads of notes and suggestions for rewrites.
Speaking to The New York Times in 2003, Dante remembered getting some negative feedback about cartoon violence from early test screenings. “We couldn’t not deal with that, even though I think it’s ridiculous,” he said. ”I don’t think that Roadrunner cartoons ever made any kid go out and shoot their brother or put the dog in the microwave. I think kids are smarter than that. However, parents—who are the people who go to the previews and fill out the cards and recommend movies to other parents—feel dodgy about the subject of violence and cartoons. Well, sorry: Elmer Fudd comes from an agrarian society where people shoot their food.”
Thankfully, Goldberg at least seemed to understand and appreciate Dante’s struggle to keep the Looney Tunes gang behaving authentically. Dante tried to get Goldberg a co-director credit for the movie, considering there was so much animation in the film, but the Directors Guild Of America wouldn’t agree to it. They only cared about the live-action elements, which was much more of a challenge for Dante, even if he’d had experience with projects that paired human actors with puppets.
Acting opposite a co-star that you can’t react to is a “particular talent,” Dante says. Most Back In Action scenes filmed with cartoon characters were shot at least three times, using a “stuffie,” or a giant stuffed animal version of the characters, as well as a shiny mirror ball on a stick to reflect where all the lights are on set for the computer animators who would later add the Looney Tunes cast members. Fraser was a natural, with the ability to “focus on some place in the distance that is not the wall, but some place in between.” While Elfman required more coaching, she still got it figured out. The cast wasn’t the problem. “It’s a difficult thing to do and it takes time,” Dante says. “I’m very happy with all the actors.”
While the final film still features welcome onscreen cameos from Dante co-conspirators, as well as a vast storehouse of allusions to classic cartoons (like footage from Tex Avery’s “I Love To Singa”), the movie is undeniably hamstrung by the many cooks that flitted in and out of Warner Bros.’ maxi-sized kitchen. Dante remembers his disappointment after he attended the movie’s premiere: “It was so loud. I thought, ‘I’ve just made another one of those annoying, loud movies that I don’t like.'”
Some critics found more than a little to like when Looney Tunes: Back in Action first came out, even if they damned it with faint praise. In the L.A. Times, Manohla Dargis wrote that the movie was “a distinct improvement over the dreary synergy of Space Jam.” Others spent more time speculating as to what went wrong behind the scenes. Film JournalInternational‘s Ethan Alter suggests that, while it’s hard to know who to blame for the movie’s shortcomings, it’s “best to chalk this zany mess up to a case of too many conflicting ideas and no strong overarching vision.”
While Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has no “overarching vision” besides seeking tax breaks, his studio was at least considerate enough (eventually) to license both The Day The Earth Blew Up and Coyote Vs. Acme to a more caring distributor. While Dante didn’t get the same consideration with Looney Tunes: Back In Action, he doesn’t hold any grudge against the studio—even if he’s not waiting around for their call.
“It’s not the same company,” Dante says. “The executives I was having problems with have all gone away. That said, there’s no chance they ask me to make Termite Terrace now. I would certainly consider it if they did. I just think the time’s passed.”
As for the Looney Tunes films of today (like The Day The Earth Blew Up, which he calls a “return to form”), Dante is just happy that they’re reaching audiences who’ll appreciate them. “It’s nice to know that there are people out there that still care about this kind of thing,” Dante says, “and that these movies are now getting seen by people who seem to really like them.”
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