Coyote Vs. Acme Outruns The Dog Stars After Warner Shelved It
Ketchup’s release of the long-shelved Looney Tunes hybrid opened above Ridley Scott’s The Dog Stars, and the gap says plenty about August studio logic. One film was treated like a write-off; the other was supposed to be the safer grown-up play.
On the Aug. 28-30 weekend, Ketchup Entertainment’s Coyote Vs. Acme opened above Ridley Scott’s The Dog Stars, and that reversal matters because one movie was once treated like a tax line item while the other was sold as a straight studio bet. The A.V. Club put Coyote at $11 million; FanBolt reported $15.5 million. Either way, it beat The Dog Stars, which landed at $8 million. For anyone who follows movie business math, that is the weekend’s real story.
Coyote Vs. Acme turns a tax write-off into a strong opening
Ketchup’s win starts with how odd this movie’s path has been. Warner Bros. Discovery pulled Coyote Vs. Acme off the schedule in November 2023 and booked about $30 million in tax benefits, then let filmmakers shop it after the backlash. Deadline reported that Ketchup bought worldwide rights for $50 million in March 2025, after Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Paramount passed. FanBolt said Ketchup spent roughly $10 million more on marketing.
That is a hard way to turn a profit, but the opening at least gives the company oxygen. FanBolt reported a 95% Rotten Tomatoes score and an A CinemaScore, which is the kind of reception that can keep families coming once the calendar opens up around Labor Day. The film also marks Ketchup’s biggest debut to date, which is another way of saying this distributor just turned a rejected shelf item into its best-known title.
Photo: Raph_PH · CC BY 4.0 · source
The Dog Stars misses badly on a wide release
The Dog Stars did not get that kind of lift. FanBolt reported $8 million from 3,330 locations, with $850,000 in Thursday previews, a 40% Rotten Tomatoes score, a C+ CinemaScore, and PostTrak numbers that looked soft enough to hurt: 65% positive and only 41% saying they would definitely recommend it. The movie also carried a reported $70 million negative cost, and analysts put break-even near $175 million once prints and advertising are folded in.
That gap matters because the campaign appears to have sold the wrong movie. FanBolt described the marketing as a survival thriller with scavengers and gunfire, while what 20th Century actually financed was a slower two-hander about loneliness. That is a very different sell, especially in a 30-second spot in the last week of August. Ridley Scott has made plenty of films that ask for patience. This one seems to have asked for the wrong kind.
