The thing is, there were offers for the film. Plenty of them. Netflix, Amazon, and Paramount all reportedly offered to buy the film. Paramount even proposed a theatrical release, but Warner Bros. rejected each of the offers. According to the report, Warner Bros., who is set to make about $40 million from the tax write-down on “Coyote vs. Acme,” sought to not only make more than that, but insisted on covering “negative cost plus” whatever fees they incurred. The asking price was then between $75 and $80 million from a potential buyer — without the chance to counteroffer.
And before you start calling the Warner Bros. executives names, TheWrap specifies that neither of the four Warner Bros. executives who made the decision to scrap the film — CEOs of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, nor Warner Bros. Pictures Animation president Bill Damaschke or even the world’s most cartoonishly villainous movie studio president David Zaslav — had even seen the final movie. Luca and Abdy reportedly saw a “director’s cut.” Damaschke saw the first audience test preview. Zaslav did not even see a frame of it. And now it looks like we won’t get to see it, either.