A new Looney Tunes movie is headed to theaters in 2025 — but unfortunately, it’s not Coyote vs. Acme. This week it was announced The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie is set to open in theaters on February 28, 2025. The film was originally intended for Max but was acquired by Ketchup Entertainment after having been shelved by Warner Bros. for tax purposes. The film is also getting a North American premiere on this week at Animation Is Film in order for the film to be eligible for a Best Animated Feature Academy Award nomination.
Directed by Pete Browngardt, The Day The Earth Blew Up follows Porky Pig and Daffy Duck as they team up as Earth’s only hope against an alien invasion. The film is described as being a “sci-fi comedy adventure”. Browngardt also co-wrote the movie along with Darrick Bachman, Kevin Costello, Andrew Dickman, David Gemmill, Alex Kirwan, Ryan Kramer, Jason Reicher, Michael Ruocco, Johnny Ryan, and Eddie Trigueros.
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“For generations, the Looney Tunes have held a soft spot in the hearts of fans the world over, including my own,” Gareth West, Ketchup Entertainment CEO said in a statement. “It’s a true pleasure to bring into theaters Peter Browngardt’s hilariously smart, emotional, and gorgeously rendered story for fans and movie-lovers of all ages to experience a wholly new and original cinematic adventure with our friends, Porky and Daffy.”
While The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie getting a theatrical release date is good news for not only fans but those who made the film, it’s bittersweet as well. Coyote vs. Acme, another Warner Bros. project which starred John Cena and was a hybrid of animation and live-action, was shelved by the studio as a tax write off, joining films such as DC’s Batgirl and the Scooby-Doo movie, Scoob! Holiday Haunt. In that film, “after every ACME Corporation product backfired on Wile E. Coyote, in his pursuit of the Road Runner, he hires an equally unlucky human attorney to sue the company. When Wile E.’s lawyer finds out that his former law firm’s intimidating boss is ACME’s CEO, he teams up with Wile E. to win the court case against him. The film was to be based on the fictional The New Yorker article “Coyote v. Acme” by Ian Frazier, which was published in 1990.” In addition to Cena, the film starred Lana Condor and Will Forte.
Despite Coyote vs. Acme not seeing the light of day, The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie getting a theatrical release date is still a win as it means at least a portion of Warner Bros. rich animation legacy survives — for now. Warner Bros. Discovery has been seemingly trying to kill off its animation legacy, having shut down the Boomerang website at the end of September and also having shut down the Cartoon Network’s website as well. Fans are instead encouraged to subscribe to Max. Prior to that, in 2022, Warner Bros. Discovery merged Cartoon Network Studios with Warner Bros. Animation. The Day the Earth Blew Up at least surviving is a small silver lining. It will also be the first time a fully animated Looney Tunes feature film will be released in theaters — previous Looney Tunes feature films have been a combination of animation and live-action while others were compilations of shorts. And there’s another silver lining to The Day The Earth Blew Up getting theatrical release: if it’s successful, it could mean that we get more Looney Tunes in the future.
The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie opens in theaters February 28, 2025.
