Coyote vs. Acme, the long-delayed live-action/animated comedy from director Dave Green, finally reaches theaters on August 28, 2026, after Warner Bros. Discovery’s 2023 decision to shelve the completed film sparked years of fan backlash and an eventual rescue by Ketchup Entertainment. The film stars Will Forte as billboard lawyer Kevin Avery, John Cena as opposing counsel Buddy Crane, and Lana Condor, alongside a supporting cast that includes Tone Bell, Luis Guzmán, Martha Kelly, and voice work from Eric Bauza as the classic Looney Tunes characters. The story follows Wile E. Coyote as he takes the Acme Corporation to court over decades of exploding, malfunctioning products.
From here on, this article is about the music — the score, the songs, and everything confirmed (and not yet confirmed) about how Coyote vs. Acme sounds.
Coyote vs. Acme Soundtrack Details Table
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Film Title | Coyote vs. Acme |
| Director | Dave Green |
| Production Companies | Warner Animation Group, Troll Court Entertainment, Keylight Pictures |
| Distributor | Ketchup Entertainment (U.S.); Warner Bros. Pictures internationally |
| Film Release Date | August 28, 2026 |
| Composer | Steven Price |
| Soundtrack Label | WaterTower Music |
| Soundtrack Release Date | August 21, 2026 |
| Total Tracks | 27 |
| Runtime | 60 minutes, 39 seconds (1:00:39) |
Coyote vs. Acme Soundtrack Overview
The official Coyote vs. Acme (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) arrived digitally through WaterTower Music on August 21, 2026, a week ahead of the film’s theatrical debut. It is a score-only release — 27 original cues composed by Steven Price, with no separate “songs from the film” companion album confirmed at this time.
Price has described his approach as building an original orchestral comedy score that consciously nods to Carl Stalling, the composer whose frantic, cartoon-perfect music defined the golden-age Looney Tunes shorts, while still giving the coyote and his ACME-fueled misadventures a modern, live-action-scale sound. The tone lands somewhere between slapstick mickey-mousing and genuine courtroom-drama tension, matching a film that swings between cartoon chaos and a straight-faced legal-comedy plot.
Who Composed the Coyote vs. Acme Soundtrack?
Steven Price is the sole composer credited on Coyote vs. Acme. Born in Nottingham, England, in 1977, Price studied music at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, before working his way up through the film industry — first as an assistant in Andy Gill’s London studio, then as a music editor on The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and The Return of the King under Howard Shore, and later on Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins.
His scoring debut came with Joe Cornish’s cult favorite Attack the Block (2011), co-written with Basement Jaxx, which won him honors from the Austin Film Critics Association and the Sitges Film Festival. Two years later, his work on Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity (2013) earned him the Academy Award for Best Original Score, along with a BAFTA, a Critics’ Choice Award, a Satellite Award, and ASCAP’s inaugural Film Composer of the Year honor.
Since then, Price has built a genre-spanning résumé that includes war epics (Fury), blockbuster comic-book action (Suicide Squad), stylish heist thrillers (Baby Driver), nature documentaries (Our Planet, Ocean with David Attenborough), animated features (Over the Moon), and most recently the 2025 remake of The Running Man. Coyote vs. Acme marks his first outing scoring a Looney Tunes property, and by his own description, a chance to pay tribute to Carl Stalling’s cartoon-scoring legacy while writing something distinctly his own.
Coyote vs. Acme Official Tracklist
All 27 tracks and durations below are confirmed via FMDB’s official release listing.
- I Know Too Much — 2:38
- Acme — 1:13
- Fastas Hellus vs. Hungrious Carnivorus — 3:14
- Thwarted Plans — 2:44
- The Sky Is Not the Limit — 3:12
- We Wrote the Law — 0:54
- We Will Be Polite — 2:41
- You May Be Seated — 1:14
- My Client Is Innocent — 2:52
- What’s Up Doc? — 2:16
- That Looks Unspeakably Dangerous — 3:31
- It Is Really Super Easy to Lose — 2:22
- We Were Having a Heart to Heart — 1:23
- Roadrunner Stew — 1:09
- I Tawt I Taw — 2:13
- This Calls for a Flashback — 3:17
- Bombs, Boulders and Pianos — 1:43
- The Whole World Will Be Watching — 1:47
- You Wanted a Drumstick — 2:35
- Stop Stop Stop Stop Stop Stop Stop — 3:16
- He Wakes Up with Purpose — 3:22
- Business Is Complex — 1:41
- A Little Pain for the Greater Good — 2:29
- Are You Coming Back — 2:34
- They Trust You — 1:58
- The Sky’s the Limit — 1:24
- 1812 Overture — 0:57
Total runtime: 60:39 — independently cross-checked by summing all 27 individual track durations, which matches FMDB’s platform-stated total exactly, with no rounding discrepancy.
Score Highlights
“I Know Too Much” opens the album and, going by placement and title, likely functions as the film’s mission-statement cue — introducing Wile E. Coyote’s growing awareness of ACME’s corporate cover-up.
“Fastas Hellus vs. Hungrious Carnivorus” borrows the mock-Latin naming convention long associated with Wile E. Coyote in the classic shorts (where he’s humorously assigned a pseudo-scientific genus-and-species name playing off his pursuit of the Road Runner). At over three minutes, it’s one of the longer cues on the album and is likely built around an action or chase sequence.
“What’s Up Doc?” takes its title directly from Bugs Bunny’s signature catchphrase — a clear wink to the wider Looney Tunes universe even though the track sits within Wile E. Coyote’s own story.
“I Tawt I Taw” nods to Tweety Bird’s famous line (“I tawt I taw a puddy tat”), suggesting a lighter, comedic cue rather than an action set piece.
“Stop Stop Stop Stop Stop Stop Stop” and “He Wakes Up with Purpose” are among the album’s longest tracks (3:16 and 3:22, respectively), and their titles suggest they anchor major set pieces — likely a chase or chaos sequence and a rousing narrative turning point.
“1812 Overture” is listed as an original Steven Price cue on the score album rather than a licensed classical recording. Tchaikovsky’s original 1812 Overture has a long, famous history of being used as a needle drop in classic Looney Tunes shorts, so this cue’s title is very likely an intentional homage — though, as credited here, it is an original arrangement written for the film’s score rather than the licensed classical piece itself.
(Note: track-by-track interpretations above are analytically derived from titles and known Looney Tunes conventions, not from confirmed scene-by-scene descriptions from the composer or studio. They are labeled as such in the Source Transparency Report below.)
Coyote vs. Acme Licensed Songs / Needle Drops
At the film’s San Diego Comic-Con panel in July 2025, a first-look clip from Coyote vs. Acme showed Wile E. Coyote alone in his lair, despondent, while Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt” plays underneath the sequence. This clip was described by multiple outlets covering the panel footage as an actual scene from the film — not a marketing-only trailer cut — making it the one confirmed needle drop associated with Coyote vs. Acme at this time.
Importantly, “Hurt” does not appear on the official Steven Price score album released by WaterTower Music, which is a score-only release. That’s expected: licensed needle drops are frequently left off score-only soundtrack albums even when they’re used in the finished film.
Beyond “Hurt,” no additional licensed songs have been confirmed. As of this writing, needle-drop databases including Tunefind, WhatSong, and SeekerTune show no dedicated episode/scene entries for Coyote vs. Acme. This is expected behavior rather than a confirmed absence of songs — these databases typically lag 24 to 72+ hours (often longer for theatrical films) behind a title’s release, and Coyote vs. Acme does not open wide until August 28, 2026. This section will be updated with confirmed scene-by-scene needle drops once the film has released and indexing catches up.
Composer Filmography Table
| Year | Title | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | Attack the Block | Joe Cornish | Feature scoring debut |
| 2013 | The World’s End | Edgar Wright | — |
| 2013 | Gravity | Alfonso Cuarón | Academy Award, BAFTA, Critics’ Choice, Satellite Award |
| 2014 | Fury | David Ayer | — |
| 2016 | Suicide Squad | David Ayer | — |
| 2017 | Baby Driver | Edgar Wright | — |
| 2019 | The Aeronauts | Tom Harper | — |
| 2019 | Our Planet | — | Netflix documentary series |
| 2020 | Over the Moon | Glen Keane | Netflix animated feature |
| 2021 | Last Night in Soho | Edgar Wright | — |
| 2022 | My Policeman | Michael Grandage | — |
| 2023 | Heart of Stone | Tom Harper | — |
| 2025 | Heads of State | Ilya Naishuller | — |
| 2025 | The Running Man | Edgar Wright | — |
| 2026 | Coyote vs. Acme | Dave Green | Current release |
Where to Listen to the Coyote vs. Acme Soundtrack?
The Coyote vs. Acme score has been available on Spotify, Apple Music, and other major streaming and download platforms since its August 21, 2026 digital release through WaterTower Music, a week ahead of the film’s August 28 theatrical debut. Iam8bit and WaterTower Music have since opened pre-orders for a physical vinyl release of Steven Price’s score as well.
Update (September 2026): Coyote vs. Acme has now had its full theatrical run. The film opened at No. 2 at the domestic box office with roughly $15.5 million across 3,575 screens (behind Spider-Man: Brand New Day‘s fifth weekend at No. 1), and reception from critics has been notably positive for a film that spent years shelved by Warner Bros. Discovery before Ketchup Entertainment rescued it for release. Beyond the confirmed “Hurt” needle drop discussed below, needle-drop databases including Tunefind, WhatSong, and SeekerTune still show no additional dedicated scene-by-scene entries for the film as of this writing.
FAQs
Who composed the Coyote vs. Acme soundtrack?
Steven Price, the Academy Award-winning composer of Gravity, wrote the original score for Coyote vs. Acme.
How many tracks are on the Coyote vs. Acme soundtrack album?
The official album contains 27 tracks, running 60 minutes and 39 seconds in total.
When was the Coyote vs. Acme soundtrack released?
WaterTower Music released the digital soundtrack album on August 21, 2026, one week ahead of the film’s August 28, 2026 theatrical release.
Where can I stream the Coyote vs. Acme soundtrack?
It’s available on Spotify, Apple Music, and other major platforms under WaterTower Music’s standard release pattern; a physical vinyl edition is also available for pre-order.
Does the Coyote vs. Acme soundtrack include any licensed songs?
The official album is score-only. Johnny Cash’s “Hurt” has been confirmed as appearing in an actual scene shown in first-look footage from the film, though it is not part of the score album itself. No additional needle drops have been confirmed as of this writing.
What is the Coyote vs. Acme score’s musical style?
Steven Price built an original orchestral comedy score intended as an homage to Carl Stalling, the composer behind the classic Looney Tunes shorts, while giving the story a modern, feature-film scale.
Is this Steven Price’s first Looney Tunes project?
Yes. Coyote vs. Acme is his first score for a Looney Tunes property, though he has previously scored other animated features, including Over the Moon.
How did Coyote vs. Acme perform at the box office?
The film opened at No. 2 domestically with about $15.5 million across 3,575 screens, behind Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Critical reception has been notably positive, capping a release that had been in doubt since Warner Bros. Discovery shelved the finished film in 2023.