LOS ANGELES, Aug. 24 (UPI) — John Cena, Lana Condor and Will Forte said Coyote vs. Acme, in theaters Friday, celebrates themes of confidence and resilience. In the film, Wile E. Coyote hires lawyers to sue ACME for all the defective products he’s used in his pursuit of Road Runner.

Cena plays Buddy Crane, counsel for ACME. Buddy has all the confidence of the corporation behind him.

In a recent Zoom interview with UPI, Cena, 49, said the case challenges Buddy’s confidence in a dramatic way.

“Buddy’s strength is his confidence but that also becomes hubris,” Cena said. “It’s that overconfidence that I can’t lose, especially not to a character like Will’s character. That’s what makes for an interesting story.”

Forte, 56, plays Kevin Avery, a small time lawyer who advertises on television. Kevin wants Wile E. to settle with ACME but the coyote insists on going to court.

“He’s the underdog,” Forte said. “ACME is the huge corporation. Kevin is the little train that goes. ‘I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.'”

Referring to The Little Engine That Could, Forte remembered another step. Kevin resists the case at first.

“Well, at first he’s like ‘I don’t think I can. I don’t want to try,” Forte said. “He learns some valuable lessons from Wile E that help him get his stuff together and makes a difference in the end. So he’s the David vs. the Goliath for sure.”

Condor, 29, plays Kevin’s intern, Paige. Paige believes in Wile E. and Kevin to represent him. The message of Wile E. never giving up, even though he always loses, resonated with Condor.

“The concept of never giving up applies to everyone, every age,” Condor said. “I find that my audience really does gravitate towards more hopeful, optimistic, hopeful, optimistic, heartfelt films.”

Wile E. does not speak in the film, as he never spoke in Road Runner shorts. Looney Tunes voice actor Eric Bauza does have many characters in the film, including Daffy Duck and Porky Pig revealed in the trailer.

The message of Wile E.’s perseverance resonated with Bauza in the journey to see Coyote vs. Acme released. Produced by Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns Looney Tunes, the film was shelved in 2023.

Ketchup Entertainment bought distribution rights last year and set the film for release this Friday.

“To even just think that we’re having this conversation, that’s how far we’ve come,” Bauza, 46, said. “We will all be watching it with a big bucket of popcorn.”

Forte himself worried the film would meet the fate of Batgirl, which Warner Bros. Discovery reportedly deleted from servers as a tax write-off.

“I didn’t even think they’d let me show my kids,” Forte said. “Now a couple years go by and all of a sudden out of nowhere, seemingly Ketchup Entertainment comes out and rescues it. I never thought the day would come and it’s so exciting to be talking now from this position of releasing it.”

Director Dave Green also credited Looney Tunes fans for encouraging the release of the film. Ketchup Entertainment also released last year’s fully animated The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie.

“The resilience and the persistence of the fan base has been absolutely incredible,” Green said. “Yes, I feel very lucky to have been able to work with this character who is like a model of persistence and passion.”

Green directed both live-action and visual effects artists to combine the worlds of Looney Tunes animation and physical courtrooms. Dave Barclay operated a Wile E. Coyote puppet on the set, but Green replaced all of that with an animated Wile E., often interacting with physical mayhem.

“When we actually get to blow something up on set, that’s when we feel really alive,” Green said.

Barclay’s puppet aided Condor in rehearsals, she said.

“He really does make Wile E, his puppet, feel like a living, breathing character in our world,” Condor said. “I kind of thought Wile E. was cute, thought he was a little cutie. I thought he was adorable. I loved him.”

Green said the process was different than his previous films. Earth to Echo used a physical puppet as its alien. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows had actors wearing performance capture suits on set as the turtles.

“We were inspired by Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, of course, but also courtroom dramas and thrillers like Erin Brockovich, A Few Good Men, The Verdict and even The Insider,” Green said. “Those were in the stew when we were in the creation process here.”

ACME also takes some digs at real-life corporations. While real products are not as explosive as ACME’s, viewers may relate to a general frustration with technology.

“They’re Apple, Amazon, Google combined into the biggest company in the world,” Green said. “It’s about Wile E. Coyote using ACME products for 80 years, all these products backfiring horribly in his face and him waking up one day and realizing that he has a pretty good case on his hands.”

Cena was pleased with the rules Green established to make sense of the hybrid. Early in the film it is established that the Looney Tunes live in Albuquerque with humans.

“It is whimsical; it is live people, animation, the way he constructed it to explain there’s this side, there’s this side,” Cena said. “Every once in a while they coexist. This is a chance that can really happen in their constraints of our world. We invite you to imagine with us.”