Warner Bros are sending Steve Carell to get looney at ACME

Fun fact: The official website for 1996’s Space Jam is still live, like some kind of time-capsule of awful 90’s web design. Not so fun fact: That was also the last time a big fuss was really made about the classic Looney Toons series. Yes, there was Joe Dante’s Looney Toons: Back in Action in 2003, but it barely made a blip on the radar (despite it actually being pretty decent). And as somebody that essentially had his childhood personality molded by Bugs, Daffy, Wile. E and the gang (which explains all the anvils I keep dropping on Darryn’s head), I want it to be a big deal again.

And so do Warner Bros, which is why they’re going back to the drawing board. Or rather, they’re going to ACME, the place that makes the drawing boards. And rocket-rollerskates. And giant anvils. And exploding tennis balls.

According to a report from THR, the fictional company that makes just about everything in the Looney Toons universe is poised to be the focus of a new live-action/CGI hybrid movie, and to make this movie happen, WB have recruited a whole bunch of talent. X-Men: First Class screenwriters Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz have now been tapped for scripting duties, while Crazy Stupid Love co-directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa are in very early talks to helm the production. If Ficarra and Requa end up taking the gig, they will actually be reteaming with funnyman Steve Carell, who is headlining here and also starred in Crazy Stupid Love.

Dan Lin and Roy Lee, who are also behind the mega-successful and really awesome (EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!) The LEGO Movie, are also producing here, and just going by that stable of talent it’s clear that WB are hoping that they can replicate that success, with this movie possibly kicking off a new movie franchise.

While it’s known that the ACME Company itself will be the focus/setting for this film, the rest of the story is being kept in a brown box marked “ACME”, which will probably explode when you open it. The one thing we do seem to know, and which is actually a bit saddening, is that the movie “would not center on the Looney Tunes characters”. Sufferin’ succotash!

This is of course not the first time that ACME has taken the spotlight in a feature film: In the aforementioned Looney Toons: Back in Action, Steve Martin played the head of ACME, Mr. Chairman, and the classic Who Framed Roger Rabbit? also focused heavily on the inner workings of the fictional company and their ridiculous, physics defying products. Whether this new movie (which has actually been in development since 2010, but has seen very little movement until now) will be following up on any of those threads or doing something new and different is unknown.

Last Updated: August 28, 2014