Well, here’s a plot twist nobody saw coming: the Looney Tunes gang just proved they still have plenty of legs in theaters. Coyote vs. Acme - the live-action/animation hybrid that spent years trapped in corporate purgatory - finally hit the big screen and immediately became a story of redemption, landing a solid No. 2 spot at the domestic box office with a $15.4 million debut. It’s a feel-good win for fans who campaigned relentlessly for the movie’s release after it was infamously shelved by Warner Bros., only to be resurrected by another distributor.
The film’s performance is especially sweet because it defied the odds. Marketing was modest, buzz was mostly word-of-mouth from early festival screenings, and the premise - Wile E. Coyote suing Acme Corporation for his endless stream of injuries - felt like a niche inside joke. But audiences showed up, and the movie’s blend of slapstick nostalgia and courtroom satire clearly struck a chord. The No. 2 finish also puts it ahead of several bigger-budgeted sequels that spent far more on promotion, proving that sometimes all you need is a beloved cartoon character, a legal pad, and an anvil.
Spider-Man’s Quiet Scramble for the All-Time Crown
Meanwhile, over in the superhero universe, Spider-Man continues to swing its way toward history. The latest Spidey installment is now inching dangerously close to surpassing Avatar: The Way of Water on the all-time global box office chart. The film has been a juggernaut since its release, powered by a multiverse storyline that turned the entire internet into a spoiler minefield. The gap between Spidey and the blue aliens is now razor-thin, and industry insiders are already predicting which day it will officially overtake James Cameron’s sequel.
It’s a fascinating matchup when you think about it: one franchise is built on cutting-edge visual effects and oceanic world-building, while the other is carried by a teenager in a red-and-blue suit and a rotating roster of legacy actors. Yet the box office doesn’t lie, and audiences have been flocking to see this latest web-slinging adventure in IMAX and 3D formats. If the trend holds, Spider-Man will become only the fourth film ever to cross the $2 billion threshold, which would put it in the rarefied air of Avatar, Avengers: Endgame, and Titanic. And honestly, at this point, it’s less a question of if and more a matter of when - and how soon the studio can start marketing a new “#1 of all time” pity stat.
The Dog Stars Take a Sad Bow
Now for the rougher news out of Hollywood: the dog-centric action-comedy Dog Stars has been put to sleep, and no, that’s not a euphemism for a budget cut - it’s just the gentlest way to say the film has been pulled from theaters after a disastrous run. The project, which had hopes of combining canine charm with high-octane aerial stunts, simply never found an audience. Opening to tepid reviews and an even tepid-er audience, the movie saw its grosses decline week after week until exhibitors decided to ship it to the proverbial farm upstate - aka early digital release.
It’s a shame, really, because the concept had some real legs. A pack of trained dogs flying vintage planes? That’s either a stroke of genius or a fever dream, and the trailers leaned hard into the silliness. But audiences just didn’t bite, and the competition was fierce: a beloved cartoon coyote and an unstoppable Spidey are hard to fight for screens against. The film’s studio is already spinning the release as a “catalog title with streaming potential,” which is corporate-speak for "we’re cutting our losses and hoping Netflix picks it up."
Still, there’s a lesson here about animal movies in this era: Air Bud and Homeward Bound worked because they were simple, emotional, and didn’t require CGI-filled dogfights over the Grand Canyon. Sometimes you can’t just slap a dog on a poster and expect a Pavlovian response from audiences. In this case, the dogs not only failed to fetch the big bucks - they got the pink slip.
All in all, it’s been a wild weekend at the multiplex. The underdog (or under-coyote) story of the year is playing out in real time, a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is about to topple a blue monolith, and a pack of airborne pooches has landed in the junkyard of forgotten releases. If there’s one takeaway, it’s that audiences still love a good comeback - and they’re also perfectly fine with letting a flop fade quietly into the credits.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter