‘Coyote Vs. Acme’ Sets A Rotten Tomatoes Review Score Record

Coyote vs. Acme

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

There are few films that have had a saga quite like Coyote vs. Acme, the previously shelved Looney Tunes live-action/animation hybrid that was once a casualty of cost-cutting before it was eventually resurrected. Was it worth it? Well, critics certainly seem to think so, as per its new Rotten Tomatoes score, which makes it one of the highest-rated wide releases of the year. And it’s set a separate record as well.

Coyote vs. Acme has a 96% Rotten Tomatoes critic review score ahead of its wide release this weekend, with 104 reviews counted. It’s not just the best-scored animated movie of the year (well, in part), but one of the best wide-releases of the year, period. Some of its competitors:

• The Furious – 98% critic score
• The Invite – 97% critic score
• Coyote vs. Acme – 96% critic score
• Project Hail Mary – 95% critic score
• The Sheep Detectives – 95% critic score
• Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma – 95% critic score
• The Odyssey – 94% critic score
• It Ends – 94% critic score
• Hoppers – 94% critic score
• Toy Story 5 – 93% critic score
• Obsession – 93% critic score

I suppose you could count The Sheep Detectives as an animation/live-action movie given that the sheep are largely CGI. As for other big animated movies, Coyote vs. Acme tops both Hoppers and the blockbuster Toy Story 5. Besides Toy Story, other top-earners this year, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and Minions and Monsters, are far below it with 42% and 89% Rotten Tomatoes review scores, respectively. Coyote vs. Acme is also the highest-scored Looney Tunes movie ever, unless you count 1979’s The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie at 100% with five reviews, hardly an era that produced live Rotten Tomatoes scores, given that the site did not exist until 1998.

We do not know how much Coyote vs. Acme will make this weekend, but estimates put it between $12 and $18 million. It does seem unlikely to get past the animated movies listed here, but who knows what the resurrected film may be capable of? If it can rise from the dead, who’s to say it can’t surprise everyone by being a big, unexpected hit? Though it would be sad if the film went through all this and was ignored by audiences.

We will know the box office by late Sunday, but these review scores are pretty locked, and it’s clear Coyote vs. Acme is not to be missed.

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