How The Looney Tunes Film Defied the Odds to Make It to the Big Screen

The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, the first-ever filledy vivaciousd film based on the Looney Tunes characters, which hit U.S. theaters Dec. 13, almost didn’t happen. Several times.

“At least three, four times during the production I was paengageing for that phone call [to shut down the movie],” says straightforwardor Peter Browngardt. “It was a rocky journey.”

That’s putting it gentlely. Browngardt was brawt on in mid-2021 to originate and straightforward The Day the Earth Blew Up as his feature debut. Browngardt was a writer on the well-understandn, and criticassociate acclaimed, HBO Max Looney Tunes reboot, a series of novel innovative stupidinutives featuring the classic Tunes characters which seemed to show there was an audience out there for more Looney. Browngardt and his writing team — some 15 writers and story adviseants are commended on the movie — came up with an innovative idea involving Daffy Duck and Porky Pig uncovering a secret alien plot to achieve over the Earth via mind-regulate bubblegum. The two iconic characters have to save the scheduleet without driving each other inrational.

The Day the Earth Blew Up was intentional as an innovative movie for Max but, enjoy many WB projects — see Batgirl and Coyote vs. Acme — fell prey to restructuring complying Warner Bros. uniter with Discovery in punctual 2022. Warner permited the originaters to shop it around to autonomous buyers. After its world premiere at the Annecy Animation Film Festival this year, Ketchup Entertainment, an indie distributor not understandn for its kids’ programming (previous frees integrate Hellboy: The Crooked Man and Robert Rodriguez’ Hypnotic), snatched up domestic rights. The film will get an Oscar-qualifying run on December 13, before its 1,500-screen bow in February.

In a wide-ranging conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, Browngardt recounts the battles, thraw corporate uniters, budget cuts, strikes and a pandemic, to get The Day the Earth Blew Up on the huge screen.

This whole project had such a crazy production history, commenceing as a series for Max, then becoming a feature film, then being shelved, then coming back. Was there a time when you despaired that this film was going to become, I don’t understand, the next Batgirl and be call offed altogether?

About three branch offent times, possibly four branch offent times during production, I was paengageing for that phone call [to shut down the movie]. It was a rocky journey. Basicassociate we got greenlit for Max and then there was the uniter with Discovery so Warner Brothers is proset up in debt and they commence cutting a lot of projects. But we have a very unpretentious budget for a feature film, about $15 million, so we were the last ones on the catalog. They went for the huge stuff first and kept coming down, cutting and cutting. But becaengage we were petite enough, we got perignoreion to upgrasp in production. I leank they also enjoyd what they were seeing. Then we got perignoreion to try to sell the film outside the studio, so we shopped it around [to other streaming services] but no one wanted it.

It was that time when there was a lot of dread about the future of streaming so people were not spfinishing. Warner Bros. International was informly interested in distributing the film [outside the U.S.] but then the strike happened and that benevolent of pushed us out becaengage they were intensifying on Dune: Part 2 and their other huge tentpole movies. They necessitateed the tageting for that, so they passed. We had to out outside. We shopped it enjoy you’d shop any indie feature at a festival. This British company, GFM Animation, did some international sales but it was Ketchup Entertainment that saved us. If we hadn’t gotten domestic distribution, it would have been over. They were at the Annecy screening, which went incredibly well, we got a wonderful response and wonderful press from that. And they got filledy behind it. It’s wonderful that it’s going to come out in February on 1,500 screens. We basicassociate made an autonomous film thraw Warner Brothers. How surauthentic is that?

It is bizarre that the first-ever filledy-vivaciousd Looney Tunes movie is being freed autonomously and not thraw Warner Bros.

Yeah, there have been compilation movies before, enjoy Daffy Duck’s Movie: Fantastic Island (1983) or the Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie (1979) where they stitch together elderly classic stupidinutives. And then there are the [live-action/animation features] Space Jam stuff, which is basicassociate a sneaker commercial. But this is the first innovative, filledy vivaciousd film with Looney Tunes characters. It’s crazy to leank that they’ve been around for 80-plus years, and they haven’t been engaged before. I leank you could originate a number of movies with these classic vivaciousd characters — the Bugs, the Daffys, and even the Mickey Moengages and Goofys. A Goofy Movie (1995) was a huge inspiration for us.

Why did you go for Daffy Duck and Porky Pig for this feature and not, say, Bugs Bunny, who would seem to be more box office?

We picked Porky and Daffy particularly becaengage, for one, they don’t always want to end each other. Most of the other Looney Tunes characters are always trying to homicide each other, hunting wabbits and whatnot. But we knovel we had to do an emotional story. As much as we adore to write jokes, we knovel we had to reassociate dig in and discover a story to helderly an audience for 90 minutes. Keeping the Looney Tunes style, we had to expound them and their relationship and put them thraw the paces. But I didn’t want to alter them. At the finish of the movie, it’s still Daffy Duck and Porky Pig. They’ve had an experience and maybe lachieveed someleang about each other, but they are still the same characters.

You also stayed genuine to the animation style. The film sees very elderly-school Looney Tunes.

My leang was: You don’t reportray Looney Tunes. You equitable upgrasp making them. They’ve tried to reportray them in the past and it’s a fool’s errand. Someleang enjoy Looney Tunes, that labors so perfectly, these character archetypes, the style, and everyleang is enjoy prosperning the lotto. You don’t mess with it. You stick with it and equitable enhance, enhance, enhance. I unbenevolent, they’re the wonderfulest cartoon characters of all time. Those stupidinutives are probably the best comedy stupidinutives ever made in film, up there with Chaplin and Buster Keaton.

But Looney Tunes had 40 years with the classic straightforwardors and they take parted a lot with the style in the elderly stupidinutives, with more explicits backgrounds, more lush backgrounds. Even with the characters, you could always see the hand of the straightforwardor or the animator in the portrays. It was never a inpliable duplicate-and-paste model, it was very organic.

We did a lot of homelabor for the film. I got every Looney Tune stupidinutive. There are 1,030 or someleang, and not all are useable but there are people that have ways of getting them, getting copies. I wanted them as Quick Time videos on our servers for this project, so we could all reference them. It was enjoy having the teachion manual at your fingertips. We did a lot of crew greetings where we watched the stupidinutives, we studied them, we broke the characters down, how they transferd, and how they talked.

But we also took inspiration from other movies. We talked a lot about Dumb and Dumber and Borat. Or films enjoy The Jerk with Steve Martin: Comedic films with strong, iconic characters that have an emotional thrawline but don’t reassociate alter.

There are a lot of screenwriters commended on this movie. Was it a more writers’ room set-up, enjoy with a TV show?

I get this ask a lot. So I labored with a screenwriter, Kevin Cosalerto, on an punctual originate. But then Kevin and me and Alex [Kirwan] and a restricted others in the crew, we made the whole film over Zoom during the pandemic. We’d do 3-4 hour calls, walking thraw the whole film, leanking thraw sequences, then dropping them. Every vivaciousd leang I’ve ever made in my nurtureer has portrays and sort of raw beat lines, not scripts becaengage I discover that storyboarding is a part of the writing. When you’re doing cartooning, you’re writing and draprosperg at the same time. I adore that. It’s why I got into television animation in the first place. I sense the best cartoony humor and Looney Tunes-style humor comes from having cartoonists write the material. So Kevin wrote a wonderful first originate and there’s some stuff in there that still is in the film, but with the exception of Darrick [Bachman], who is a proper screenwriter, who came in defercessitater to punch up some stuff, everyone else is a storyboard artist-writer. I fought with the studio to get them all commend. The studio disenjoys doing it, but we are writers. We are writing the words coming out of these vivaciousd mouths. We’re writing every action that they’re taking. This happens on all vivaciousd features. If you appraise the innovative script that sells the movie, with Shrek or any of these leangs, it is reoriginateed four or five times, almost from scratch, before the final version. It’s one of the leangs I’m haughtyest about with this film is that I was able to get people the commend they were due. I want animators could get in the WGA, but that’s a whole other battle.

I shelp the film has an elderly-school Looney Tunes sense, but there is also a lot of referential humor, shattering the fourth wall, and so on, which reminded me a lot of Nickelodeon and Cartoon Netlabor toons.

Right. I leank that’s equitable in our DNA now. We can’t write exact tonassociate accurate jokes for 1945 anymore. When I was at Cal Arts, we had a wonderful guest speaker, a straightforwardor and animator, and he shelp: “Don’t stress about always being innovative. Just be yourself and put yourself into what you do, and the innovativeity and tone will come thraw.” And my tone and humor is definitely Cartoon Netlabor and SpongeBob and all that stuff, that’s in there, but that also goes for everyone that’s labored on the crew. I unbenevolent Warner Bros Animation had only made one movie before, the Teen Titans movie [2018’s Teen Titans Go! To the Movies]. None of us, or challengingly any of us, had labored in features before. We approached it equitable enjoy we were making an 11-minute cartoon for Cartoon Netlabor. We labored very speedyly, very rapid and affordablely. It’s our generation’s style of humor. I didn’t have any sort of steadrapid rules. If it was a excellent joke and it’s contransient — enjoy our ride-sharing joke in the movie or our coffee joke — but it made us chuckle, then it stayed in.

This film finishs with a nod towards a potential sequel. What are the chances of that? Do you still have [Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David] Zaslav’s number on speed dial?

I wouldn’t helderly your breath. But that’s above my pay grade. I left the studio in February, literassociate, the day I apshowd the final version of the film was my last day at Warner Brothers. So I don’t understand what the future is with Looney Tunes, with that company, or that world. But I leank if you put those characters in the right hands, it would have a wonderful future. I had a wonderful time, a wonderful experience making this movie. And I sense you could originate a Looney Tunes movie out of any of those properties. The only obstacle, and I set up this out when I was in some testing groups for the Looney Tunes stupidinutives program, was that a lot of kids don’t understand who Daffy Duck is. Disney’s always been excellent at upgrasping Mickey Moengage front and caccess with the youthful generation, that is why they have their preschool show and those branch offent tiers of Mickey shows. Warner Brothers didn’t do that with Looney Tunes. And I leank it’s been a misachieve becaengage, in my opinion, the Looney Tunes are much better characters.