[post 445]
Writing this post, I just learned that a "Wile E. Coyote moment" is a serious term used by serious economists. Here's no less an authority than Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman using it this week as a metaphor for the voodoo economics spouted by the Trump administration:
--Free delivery to the desert.
All of which is the basis for a very funny 1990 New Yorker piece by humorist Ian Frazier, Coyote v. Acme, in which Wile E. sues the Acme Corporation for damages. This in turn became the basis for a Warner Bros. live-action/animation movie in the style of 1988's Who Killed Rodger Rabbit. The filming of Coyote vs. Acme (produced by Superman director James Gunn) wrapped in May 2022, and none of you have seen it yet... but more on the stupid reasons why in a moment.
The entirety of Frazier’s 7-page piece consists of the opening statement by the lawyers for Mr. Coyote. It is wonderful in its mimicry of legalese and in its catalog of Coyote mishaps, all described in exacting detail. You can read the original Frazier piece for free here, as reprinted in the Texas Law Journal. (!!) But this is at best a jumping off point for a movie, hardly a film script with a developed story carried along by compelling characters and the mandatory plot twists.
So here’s what we think we know of the plot they came up with:
After years and years of failed attempts to catch the Road Runner using defective Acme products, Wile E. engages the services of a human, ambulance-chasing lawyer (Will Forte) to sue the corporation. The case has been described as a David-and-Goliath story, as our underdog heroes must face the intimidating and ruthless corporate attorney representing Acme (John Cena). As the trial proceeds, Wile E. and his lawyer uncover a dark secret: Acme has been deliberately producing faulty goods as part of a research program called "Project Sisyphus." The corporation has been studying how cartoon physics work, willfully causing harm to animated characters for its own benefit. (The mandatory plot twist.)
Huh? Well, we will have to wait until August 2026 to get the full story, and here’s why:
In 2023, the finished, ready-to-go movie was shelved by Warner Bros. so that, according to Variety, "the company could write off its $30 million budget. The movie was greenlit by the previous regime for the streaming service HBO Max, but the team led by WBD’s CEO David Zaslav decided to abandon that strategy and focus on theatrical releases instead. That decision led to the notorious cancellation of HBO Max films Batgirl and Scoob! Holiday Haunt in 2022."
You got that right. A movie about corporate greed was shelved because of corporate greed. The creative work of hundreds of people lost out to the advantages of a tax break.
Almost. There was quite an uproar on behalf of our cartoon physical comedians, and not just from the folks who had put a year or two or more of their lives into the project. Test audiences had given the movie rave reviews. Insiders who had been granted a sneak preview strongly concurred. Finally, Warner Bros. consented to at least try to find a distributor to take it over. This took quite a while, apparently because they insisted that any deal pay them substantially more than the tax break would. $100 million was said to be the asking price. In March of this year the movie rights were finally sold, but reportedly for "only" $50 million, purchased by Ketchup Entertainment. But why are we waiting another whole year for its release? No idea.
• Evolution of WILE E. COYOTE & THE ROAD RUNNER Over 71 Years
So if the conventional wisdom is that economic conditions will remain more or less normal despite highly abnormal policy, markets will remain calm until the illusion of normality becomes unsustainable. At that point market prices may “change violently.” The current technical term for this phenomenon is a “Wile E. Coyote moment” — the moment when the cartoon character, having run several steps off the edge of a cliff, looks down and realizes that there’s nothing supporting him. Only then, according to the laws of cartoon physics, does he fall.
Call him a metaphor or an archetype, whatever, Mr. Coyote’s futile struggles are as much a part of our cultural language as Charlie Brown repeatedly having the football snatched out from under him by Lucy Van Pelt. Equally iconic is the Acme Corporation, supplier of countless implements of destruction that Wile E. purchases in the hope of terminating Road Runner. As most of you know, Acme’s equipment has a 100% failure rate, prompting the joke:
--Why on earth does Wile E. Coyote keep buying from Acme??
All of which is the basis for a very funny 1990 New Yorker piece by humorist Ian Frazier, Coyote v. Acme, in which Wile E. sues the Acme Corporation for damages. This in turn became the basis for a Warner Bros. live-action/animation movie in the style of 1988's Who Killed Rodger Rabbit. The filming of Coyote vs. Acme (produced by Superman director James Gunn) wrapped in May 2022, and none of you have seen it yet... but more on the stupid reasons why in a moment.
The entirety of Frazier’s 7-page piece consists of the opening statement by the lawyers for Mr. Coyote. It is wonderful in its mimicry of legalese and in its catalog of Coyote mishaps, all described in exacting detail. You can read the original Frazier piece for free here, as reprinted in the Texas Law Journal. (!!) But this is at best a jumping off point for a movie, hardly a film script with a developed story carried along by compelling characters and the mandatory plot twists.
So here’s what we think we know of the plot they came up with:
After years and years of failed attempts to catch the Road Runner using defective Acme products, Wile E. engages the services of a human, ambulance-chasing lawyer (Will Forte) to sue the corporation. The case has been described as a David-and-Goliath story, as our underdog heroes must face the intimidating and ruthless corporate attorney representing Acme (John Cena). As the trial proceeds, Wile E. and his lawyer uncover a dark secret: Acme has been deliberately producing faulty goods as part of a research program called "Project Sisyphus." The corporation has been studying how cartoon physics work, willfully causing harm to animated characters for its own benefit. (The mandatory plot twist.)
Huh? Well, we will have to wait until August 2026 to get the full story, and here’s why:
In 2023, the finished, ready-to-go movie was shelved by Warner Bros. so that, according to Variety, "the company could write off its $30 million budget. The movie was greenlit by the previous regime for the streaming service HBO Max, but the team led by WBD’s CEO David Zaslav decided to abandon that strategy and focus on theatrical releases instead. That decision led to the notorious cancellation of HBO Max films Batgirl and Scoob! Holiday Haunt in 2022."
You got that right. A movie about corporate greed was shelved because of corporate greed. The creative work of hundreds of people lost out to the advantages of a tax break.
Almost. There was quite an uproar on behalf of our cartoon physical comedians, and not just from the folks who had put a year or two or more of their lives into the project. Test audiences had given the movie rave reviews. Insiders who had been granted a sneak preview strongly concurred. Finally, Warner Bros. consented to at least try to find a distributor to take it over. This took quite a while, apparently because they insisted that any deal pay them substantially more than the tax break would. $100 million was said to be the asking price. In March of this year the movie rights were finally sold, but reportedly for "only" $50 million, purchased by Ketchup Entertainment. But why are we waiting another whole year for its release? No idea.
But we do have some sense of the movie thanks to a panel devoted to it at the 2025 San Diego Comic Con:
Less than a year to go!
_________________________
• Frazier's piece also appears in his collection of 22 humor pieces, Coyote v. Acme. Since he used this piece as the title of the collection, I would assume that it was his most popular.
• Paul Krugman: Why aren’t markets freaking out: of Trump, Keynes and Wile E coyote
• The Nine Unbreakable Rules of the Wile E. Coyote / Road Runner Universe
• Paul Krugman: Why aren’t markets freaking out: of Trump, Keynes and Wile E coyote
• The Nine Unbreakable Rules of the Wile E. Coyote / Road Runner Universe
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