From ‘Scream 7' to ‘Coyote vs. Acme,' We're Living in the Age of the Protest Ticket

You've heard of a boycott. But what about a b-b-b-buycott? That's more or less the grassroots campaign that coalesced around 'Coyote vs. Acme,' director Dave Green's live-action/animation hybrid, which finally hit U.S. theaters on August 28 — almost three years after Warner Bros. Discovery tried to kill it in a corporate cost-cutting initiative. For the unfamiliar, Wile E. Coyote is among pop culture's great victims of both spontaneous combustion and vertical integration. In Green's new movie, distributed by Ketchup Entertainment, the desert-dwelling predator takes the Acme Corporation to civil court, accusing the fictional manufacturer of supplying him with faulty merchandise and thwarting his years-long pursuit of the Road Runner. Popular on IndieWire Samy Burch's hilarious script was inspired by Ian Frazier's 1990 New Yorker satire, which itself proposed a radical solution to decades of iconic cartoon violence: What if Wile E. Coyote stopped ordering dangerous equipment from the monopolistic Acme and instead blamed the conspicuously shoddy company for his endlessly funny failure? Thirty-six years later, that joke acquired an absurdly literal second life — as the irony surrounding Ketchup's fan-fueled release of 'Coyote vs. Acme' became so powerful it practically arrived like a case of dynamite. In November 2023, Warner Bros. Discovery announced it would shelve Green's completed, roughly $70 million film and take an estimated $30 million tax write-down instead. The decision followed the infamous cancellation of 'Batgirl' and came amid CEO David Zaslav's aggressive post-merger cost-cutting at the studio. Outrage from filmmakers and fans eventually pushed Warner Bros. Discovery to let 'Coyote vs. Acme' find another home, and Ketchup Entertainment — an indie film finance and distribution company that had already rescued another Looney Tunes orphan with 2025's 'The Day the Earth Blew Up' — ultimately acquired worldwide rights for a reported $50 million. 'Batgirl' (unreleased), 'The Day the Earth Blew Up' (2025) Warner Bros. Discovery / Everett Collection In the months before the movie's release, supporters urged each other online to 'vote with your wallet' and prove Warner Bros. wrong for trying to delete the film. Many actually showed up in theaters, and Green's wacky comedy opened to $15.9 million domestically. It dropped just 28.8 percent in its second weekend with $11.3 million, extending to $14.5 million over the four-day Labor Day frame and bringing its domestic total to $37 million. Meaning, the audience Zaslav decided wasn't worth pursuing? Yeah, its impact is getting much, much harder to miss. 'Coyote vs. Acme' is particularly interesting when compared to another studio controversy from earlier this year. In February, Paramount released 'Scream 7' despite an organized boycott over the firing of its original star Melissa Barrera and comments she made about the war in Gaza. The horror sequel dominated with a historic franchise opening anyway, and six months later, Wile E. Coyote and Ghostface are inverse emblems of the same consumer experiment. Both releases illustrate the rise of what you might call the 'protest ticket': admission purchased, or deliberately withheld, because a moviegoer believes a film's financial performance will communicate something meaningful to or about Hollywood. Taken together, they also raise a fascinating second question: Which consumer message is more formidable — social sentiment that warns, 'We won't buy this,' or box office data that proves, 'You could have sold us that'? The Layered Psychology of the 'Coyote vs. Acme' Buycott Green has said the ordeal with Warner Bros. caused him to see unintended 'meta crossovers' between 'Coyote vs. Acme' and what it came to represent, while Ketchup has wisely embraced that overlap. On April 15, U.S. Tax Day, the distributor dropped a teaser with Wile E. Coyote suspended in midair holding a sign that revealed the line, 'Check Your Write-Offs,' before sending him plummeting out of frame. The campaign further advertised the film as 'The Movie Acme Didn't Want You to See,' transforming Warner Bros.' decision to discard it into a theatrical event. There were protesters outside the world premiere of 'Coyote vs. Acme' in Los Angeles, too — but unlike the demonstrators urging consumers to stay away from 'Scream 7' this spring, these were fans who had already fought for the movie's release and now wanted to celebrate its arrival. Green thanked that grassroots audience inside, where a Wile E. mascot also led the UCLA marching band. The world premiere of 'Coyote vs. Acme' on August 26, 2026 IndieWire If the 'Scream 7' protest was organized around absence, 'Coyote vs. Acme' felt like a party. That makes it not only a joy to participate in, but also an unusually pure example of something consumer researchers have studied for decades. In 1996, Eastern Michigan University professor Monroe Friedman examined the 'buycott' as the positive 'flip side' of a boycott. Instead of punishing undesirable behavior by withholding money, buycotts encourage consumers to reward companies by spending with a purpose. That distinction is still relevant but a bit slippier at the box office, where deliberately spending money on something you support has a bad habit of looking an awful lot like ordinary shopping. In fact, modern Hollywood has seen several versions of that kind of functional buycott before. Neither 'Black Panther' nor 'Crazy Rich Asians' was explicitly marketed as a buycott film, but both blockbusters were widely seen as landmark releases whose box-office success spoke to the commercial viability of multicultural representation onscreen. Grassroots campaigns made that subtext explicit — as the #BlackPantherChallenge bought tickets for children who otherwise might not have seen the groundbreaking Marvel movie, and #GoldOpen organized 'Crazy Rich Asians' theater buyouts partly to demonstrate demand for Asian-led studio movies. 'Black Panther' (2018), 'Crazy Rich Asians' (2018), 'Obsession' (2026) Courtesy Everett Collection There's even an argument that Curry Barker's 'Obsession' functioned as a kind of accidental buycott this summer. Made for less than $1 million, the original horror film grossed more than $500 million worldwide: an almost absurd return that became shorthand for audiences rewarding inexpensive, filmmaker-driven work at a moment of profound anxiety over Hollywood's appetite for taking risks. At the more explicitly political end of the spectrum, theatrical turnout itself can become part of a film's cultural argument. Faith-based and issue-oriented releases have long attracted audiences who see attendance as evidence that their perspectives deserve screen space — from pro-life Christian movies to pro-Palestinian documentaries and dramas whose bookings, or lack thereof, can themselves become political debates. In each case, the purchase carries a message. 'Scream 7' and the Problem with Staying Home Before Melissa Barrera's absence became a reason to boycott 'Scream 7,' she was supposed to be its star. Production company Spyglass Media Group fired the actress, who played new franchise final girl Sam Carpenter, in November 2023 over social media posts characterizing Israel's conduct in Gaza as 'genocide and ethnic cleansing,' among other remarks. Spyglass said it had 'zero tolerance for antisemitism or the incitement of hate in any form,' while Barrera subsequently condemned antisemitism and Islamophobia, arguing that 'no governing body should be above criticism.' The fallout effectively destroyed 'Scream 7' as it was originally conceived. Jenna Ortega departed shortly thereafter, later saying that continuing without Barrera and the previous films' creative team 'didn't seem like the right move.' Would-be director Christopher Landon also exited, and the sequel was ultimately rebuilt around Neve Campbell's Sidney Prescott. 'Scream VI' (2023), 'Scream 7' (2026) Courtesy Everett Collection Calls for a boycott persisted through the release of 'Scream 7' this past February, with pro-Palestinian groups demonstrating outside the Los Angeles premiere. Paramount and Spyglass made a killing anyway, with 'Scream 7' opening to a franchise-record $63.6 million domestically. The immediate instinct was to declare the boycott a failure, but even record-setting success couldn't measure the number of fans who, for whatever reason, chose to stay home. 'Scream 7' plunged 73.3 percent in its second weekend and made roughly $208 million worldwide. Boycotters could point to that collapse as evidence of diminished enthusiasm, but Paramount could also rightly call the movie a box-office hit. And with a 30 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating, 35 Metascore, and a dismal 2.2-star Letterboxd average from more than half a million users, audiences had plenty of reasons to sit this 'Scream' out. That's the fundamental problem with communicating a political message through a boycott. An empty seat might represent solidarity with a cultural movement, a reaction to bad reviews, or general disinterest in the project. And regardless of the truth underlying any consumer trend, every non-existent ticket sale counts up to zero. Wait, Is Wile E. Coyote Actually Going After… Ghostface? That's where 'Coyote vs. Acme' analysis starts to get weird. Broadly speaking, the buycott looks positive on paper. Cinephiles are rewarding Ketchup for releasing a movie Warner Bros. tried to bury. And even after enduring a heavy dose of public shaming, the big bad studio still walked away with a reported $50 million from selling the comedy's worldwide rights. But the 'Coyote vs. Acme' movement wasn't driven by consumers' affection for Ketchup, or even Looney Tunes alone. The rescue was worth celebrating precisely because Zaslav's cost-cutting endeavors had made it necessary. 'Yay, Ketchup!' sentiment came packaged with 'Go to hell, Warner Bros.' discourse, and one ticket purchase communicated both effectively. That's why the 'Coyote vs. Acme' buycott is so compelling to compare with the 'Scream 7' boycott. If a boycott asks audiences to turn conviction into an absence, and then further challenges Hollywood to interpret that absence correctly, then a buycott turns conviction into a transaction that will be measured regardless. Warner Bros. can debate what motivated moviegoers to witness Wile E. Coyote's day in court, but it can't say they weren't there. 'Coyote vs. Acme' (2026) Courtesy Everett Collection There are important limits to that comparison, of course. 'Coyote vs. Acme' making money for Ketchup doesn't prove Warner Bros. would have made money releasing the film itself, and not every ticket sold represents an informed protest against the studio. The movie also has terrific reviews, an A CinemaScore, and buzzy word of mouth that can help explain its strong hold. Yes, controversy can make securing plans to catch a movie in theaters feel urgent. What it can't do is force audiences to recommend something they didn't actually enjoy. That may be precisely why this buycott is speaking so loudly. 'Coyote vs. Acme' has both the measurable enthusiasm of positive consumer activism and the antagonist marketplace narrative that makes a traditional boycott more recognizable. Fans aren't merely rewarding Ketchup. They're using that reward to make the audience Warner Bros. rejected in 2023 extra visible. Which brings us back to Barrera, Gaza, and Ghostface. 'Scream 7' demonstrated the frustrating limitation of refusing to buy something as a message to Hollywood: $208 million and a lot of impassioned consumer effort later, Paramount could still call the movie a hit. 'Coyote vs. Acme' rewires that equation. Rather than asking Hollywood to notice sales that aren't there, the film's supporters can point directly to the ones that are. And there is one final irony: If Paramount's currently stalled acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery ultimately goes through, the two studios at the center of these very different protest movements will become part of the same company. That's the strange and twisted nature of the protest ticket. Sometimes you're cheering for Wile E. Coyote, but the message was meant for Ghostface all along.