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Actor Will Forte says completed “Coyote vs. Acme” film is likely never coming out
A verdict seems to have been reached in the case of “Coyote vs. Acme,” the Warner Bros. Discovery courtroom comedy based on the popular Looney Tunes character.
The movie will likely never come out, lead actor Will Forte said in a statement on social media Thursday.
Originally slated for a theatrical release last July, the film was reportedly shelved in November last year, according to Deadline.
Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas alleged last year that the hiatus was part of a wider pattern of shelving films for tax breaks.
“The [Warner Bros. Discovery] tactic of scrapping fully made films for tax breaks is predatory and anti-competitive,” Castro wrote on social media in November.
Following fan and industry outrage over the film’s unceremonious fate, Netflix, Amazon and Paramount screened the film and “submitted handsome offers,” none of which were accepted, The Wrap reported earlier this month.
“When I first heard that our movie was getting ‘deleted,’ I hadn’t seen it yet,” Forte wrote, addressing the film’s cast and crew. “So I was thinking what everyone else must have been thinking: this thing must be a hunk of junk. But then I saw it. And it’s incredible.”
The SNL alum referenced the movie’s high score among test audiences, and he lamented the studio’s decision to bring the project to a premature end.
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“The people who paid for this movie can obviously do whatever they want with it,” Forte wrote, adding, “It doesn’t mean I have to like it … Or agree with it.”
“Please know that all the years and years of hard work, dedication and love that you put into this movie shows in every frame,” he concluded.
Based on a satirical 1990 New Yorker article by Ian Frazier, the film stars Forte and John Cena alongside the animated Wile E. Coyote, who is suing the Acme Corporation over oft-backfiring products with which Coyote attempted to capture the Road Runner in the classic Looney Tunes cartoons.
“Mr. Coyote states that on occasions too numerous to list in this document he has suffered mishaps with explosives purchased of Defendant,” reads the humor piece, written in the style of a court docket.
This is the third time Warner Bros. Discovery has axed a film in its final stages, with “Scoob! Holiday Haunt” and “Batgirl” being trimmed off the studio’s balance sheet in 2022.
“As the Justice Department and @FTC revise their antitrust guidelines they should review this conduct,” Castro wrote in his November social media post. “As someone remarked, it’s like burning down a building for the insurance money.”
There were no injuries after a Southwest flight carrying passengers was struck by gunfire on the tarmac of Dallas Love Field Friday night, authorities said.
Southwest Airlines Flight 2494 was preparing for departure to Indianapolis when “a bullet apparently struck the right side of the aircraft under the flight deck,” a Southwest spokesperson told CBS News in a statement.
The airline said no one was hurt. A spokesperson for Dallas Love Field said in an email that the aircraft returned to its gate after sustaining damage from a “security incident” and the passengers deplaned. The runway was also temporarily closed, but has since reopened.
Dallas police confirmed the incident, saying that officers responded to reports of gunfire at 9:48 p.m. local time, arriving to find that the aircraft had been struck.
No further details were provided on the circumstances of the incident or what was the potential source of the gunfire. It’s unclear how many people were aboard the jet at the time, or how much damage the aircraft sustained.
In its own statement provided to CBS News, the Federal Aviation Administration said that the plane “was reportedly struck by gunfire near the cockpit.”
Dallas police are leading the investigation into the incident.
Earlier this week, gunfire amid ongoing gang violence struck three planes that were either landing or departing Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince. The shootings prompted the FAA to issue a 30-day ban on U.S. airlines flying to Haiti.
Social media star Jake Paul defeated boxing legend Mike Tyson in a highly anticipated fight with an age difference of over three decades between the two contenders. The Friday night win for the YouTuber-turned-pro-boxer was streamed on Netflix from the home of the Dallas Cowboys in Texas.
Paul defeated Tyson by an unanimous decision after the two fighters went eight full rounds.
Fight night for the 58-year-old Tyson and 27-year-old Paul came following doubts over whether it would happen at all. The fight was originally scheduled for July, but was postponed after the former heavyweight champion experienced an ulcer flare-up on a plane in May.
A different kind of flare-up happened during the official weigh-in Thursday with Tyson slapping Paul in the face. Tyson later told the New York Post that Paul had stepped on his toe when the two were toe to toe onstage.
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What is Jake Paul’s fight record?
With the win, Paul’s record improved to 11-1.
Was Jake Paul predicted to win?
Oddsmakers had Paul as the slight favorite to win. Former heavyweight champ Anthony Joshua also went with Paul.
How much prize money does Jake Paul win?
Paul was expected to earn about $40 million from the fight, according to DraftKings Network and other online sources.
Promoters didn’t reveal the payouts ahead of the bout. Paul is a co-founder of Most Valuable Promotions, which produced the fight.
Does Mike Tyson still get paid?
Tyson was expected to take home around $20 million for the fight, according to DraftKings and other online reports.
Tyson entered professional boxing in 1985 and became the youngest heavyweight champion in history a year later. After serving time for a rape conviction in the 1990s, Tyson won the World Boxing Council and World Boxing Association titles.
He retired from boxing in 2005 and was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2011. He last fought in a 2020 exhibition match against former four-division world champ Roy Jones Jr.
“He like put on another 20 pounds from when I fought him, so he’s more bigger and he’s more dangerous because more size, more power, so it’s going to be a tough one for Jake to climb,” Jones told CBS News ahead of the fight.
Anne Marie Lee and
contributed to this report.
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