Assuming the Earth doesn’t blow up before February 28, 2025 — not a complete impossibility given our political climate — you’ll have an opportunity to watch “The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie” in theaters. It almost didn’t happen.
The Warner Bros. Animation-produced “The Day the Earth Blew Up” was one of those movies that Warner Bros. Discovery blew up for tax purposes. Distributor Ketchup Entertainment back in August picked the animated film‘s carcass up off WBD’s (cost-)cutting room floor, aka the floor in David Zaslav’s corner office.
That other Looney Tunes film, “Coyote vs. Acme,” wasn’t so lucky — or it was simply too attractive a write-off to pass up. Warner Bros. Discovery still has roughly $45 billion of debt to pay down, and Zaslav and CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels have been brutal about the content cuts.
In “The Day the Earth Blew Up,” which is billed as a “sci-fi comedy adventure,” Porky Pig and Daffy Duck are Earth’s only hope against an alien invasion. We’re all screwed.
“The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie” premiered to acclaim in June at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival. It will make its North-American premiere on Saturday at Animation Is Film — yes, Ketchup is going for that Best Animated Feature Oscar nomination. And they’re not even playing coy about it.
The press release with the wide North-American release date touted Ketchup Entertainment’s “plans for an Academy Awards qualifying run.” To qualify for the 2025 Oscars, it will need to have a short theatrical play in calendar year 2024 before it releases wider in February. An initial release date has not been set yet.
Pete Browngardt directs, executive produces, and co-wrote the movie. Like the “Looney Tunes” TV show, “The Day the Earth Blew Up” boasted an entire writers room: Darrick Bachman, Kevin Costello, Andrew Dickman, David Gemmill, Alex Kirwan, Ryan Kramer, Jason Reicher, Michael Ruocco, Johnny Ryan, and Eddie Trigueros all worked on the screenplay.
Sam Register also executive produces. Alex Kirwan is supervising producer, Michal Baum is line producer, Nick Cross is art director, and Aaron Spurgeon is production designer.
Gareth West, CEO of Ketchup Entertainment said, “For generations, the Looney Tunes have held a soft spot in the hearts of fans the world over, including my own. It’s a true pleasure to bring into theaters Peter Browngardt’s hilariously smart, emotional, and gorgeously rendered story for fans and movie-lovers of all ages to experience a wholly new and original cinematic adventure with our friends, Porky and Daffy.”
