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The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Extended Edition)

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Ian McKellen

Gandalf the Grey

Martin Freeman

Bilbo Baggins

Richard Armitage

Thorin Oakenshield

Graham McTavish

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© 2012 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All rights reserved.

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2 hr 49 min

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The hobbit: an unexpected journey: .

The adventure follows Bilbo Baggins, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim Erebor with the help of Gandalf the Grey and 13 Dwarves led by the legendary warrior Thorin Oakenshield.

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The hobbit: an unexpected journey.

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Starring: Ian Mckellen , Martin Freeman , Richard Armitage

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New zealand: home of middle-earth, the stone trolls, video blogs, theatrical trailers, game trailers, rotten tomatoes® score.

This is a cinematic world so fully realized that leaving it is a sad prospect.

A wonderfully satisfying fantasy adventure that not only connects to the previous films, but charts its own ground with great effectiveness.

When it comes to the fantasy genre, it really doesn't get more epic than this.

This is a film for true Tolkien connoisseurs.

In the end you're left wondering how it went that way, and how in the hell are they going to squeeze two more movies out of this?

'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' is an expected journey that radiates entertainment, majesty and wonder. [Full review in Spanish]

While it doesn't have the same sense of urgency and darkness as the LOTR trilogy, An Unexpected Journey is a fun and welcomed adventure, filled with humor, spectacular visuals and great action sequences. [Full review in Spanish]

Despite a few minor flaws, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is a superb (and suitably epic) addition to Peter Jackson's past adaptations of Tolkien's work. See it in 3D and 48fps for the ultimate experience.

It feels more scattershot than Jackson's prior films, a pastiche of set pieces that don't add up to a unified story.

It feels much like a gentler, more humorous and watered-down version of The Fellowship of the Ring.

Additional Info

• Genre : Action, Fantasy, Drama
• Release Date : December 14, 2012
• Languages : English, Spanish
• Captions : English, Spanish
• Audio Format : 5.1

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The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

2012, Fantasy/Adventure, 2h 49m

What to know

Critics Consensus

Peter Jackson's return to Middle-earth is an earnest, visually resplendent trip, but the film's deliberate pace robs the material of some of its majesty. Read critic reviews

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Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) lives a simple life with his fellow hobbits in the shire, until the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) arrives and convinces him to join a group of dwarves on a quest to reclaim the kingdom of Erebor. The journey takes Bilbo on a path through treacherous lands swarming with orcs, goblins and other dangers, not the least of which is an encounter with Gollum (Andy Serkis) and a simple gold ring that is tied to the fate of Middle Earth in ways Bilbo cannot even fathom.

Rating: PG-13 (Intense Action Violence|Frightening Images|Intense Fantasy Violence)

Genre: Fantasy, Adventure

Original Language: English

Director: Peter Jackson

Producer: Carolynne Cunningham , Zane Weiner , Fran Walsh , Peter Jackson

Writer: Fran Walsh , Philippa Boyens , Peter Jackson , Guillermo del Toro

Release Date (Theaters): Dec 14, 2012  wide

Release Date (Streaming): Dec 11, 2015

Box Office (Gross USA): $303.0M

Runtime: 2h 49m

Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures

Production Co: WingNut Films

Sound Mix: Dolby Digital, SDDS, Datasat

View the collection: Lord of The Rings

Cast & Crew

Ian McKellen

Martin Freeman

Bilbo Baggins

Richard Armitage

Thorin Oakenshield

Graham McTavish

William Kircher

James Nesbitt

Stephen Hunter

Dean O'Gorman

Aidan Turner

John Callen

Peter Hambleton

Mark Hadlow

Elijah Wood

Hugo Weaving

Cate Blanchett

Christopher Lee

Peter Jackson

Screenwriter

Philippa Boyens

Guillermo del Toro

Carolynne Cunningham

Zane Weiner

Executive Producer

Toby Emmerich

Carolyn Blackwood

Andrew Lesnie

Cinematographer

Jabez Olssen

Film Editing

Howard Shore

Original Music

Production Design

Andy McLaren

Art Director

Brian Massey

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Critic Reviews for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Audience reviews for the hobbit: an unexpected journey.

having read the books a long time ago in a galaxy far away (inc. the silmarilion or whatever the F) and having seen the LOTR's films when they came out too but not really paying any attention to it all since then, this was a reminder of the imagination and creativity of J.R.R. Tolkien expertly put to screen once again by peter jackson. now fervently waiting to devour the desolation of smaug whenever it plays on TV.

Precious Gollumses!!

It's definitely no LOTR...But it's still a pretty cool movie. Sure, it took it's time to try to tell the story and dragged on for a little too long, but other than that, the special effects were great, and it was entertaining as hell. It's a good introduction to The Hobbit franchise.

The decision to split up The Hobbit, has in turn split audiences. Many decry it as a simple money making scheme (which in essence it is), others struggle to see how on book only a quarter the size of any LotR book is expected to stretch the same amount of cinema time as the whole Rings trilogy combined. I however, see it as a positive. I don't mind in the least paying an extra $15 out of my own pocket for an extra 6 hours of quality film like this. It's only when they expects people to pay actual money for shite like the Twilight franchise or the Death at a Funeral U.S. remake that I have a problem with Hollywood's greed. The Hobbit, on the other hand, is perfectly capable of backing up its ticket price. And then... Lots. And lots extra. Which is nice. It differs greatly from the book in many aspects, though it has been so damn long since I've read it that I'm not sure what's actually been changed, what's new, what's gone, and what I just don't have right in my head. Martin Freeman (Sherlock, Hot Fuzz, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Shaun of the Dead, Love, Actually, Ali G Indahouse) is a fantastic Bilbo, he manages to sort of create this halfway point between Frodo and the Bilbo of the LotR trilogy. Which is really kind of perfect when you think about it. Gandalf's the same as ever, really nothing to recap (which is a solid move in my mind). Frodo's also back for some flashback/forward scenes (depending on how you look at it). Which totally makes sense, flaunt 'em if you got 'em. This isn't a line by line adaptation of The Hobbit, it's the first film of the Peter Jackson prequel to the Peter Jackson trilogy of the Rings, both of which are somewhat based on the books. So in his version of the world (which is still very loveable, just different) it makes perfect sense to have these great cameos. The Dwarves are where it all gets a bit confusing. Remembering names and faces, all that jazz. Before I continue though, let me get myself decapitated by all of Tumblr. Why the fuck is everyone going so goddamn schizoid over Kili (Played by Aidan Turner [Being Human, The Tudors]) when he's the one Dwarf without a motherhuggin' beard!? I may not be as beard-savy as L'alice (whose Tumblr is MainliningBeards) but I do appreciate the shit out of them (on that, how amazing is Thror's beard? All armoured and junk, goddamn). He's this skinny fucker with no beard, and does archery all over the place. I mean, yes it does seem like they somehow managed to fuse together Legolas and Aragon to create this dude, which is a nice touch, but he's not that babin' and he sure as shit isn't a Dwarf. Now the other two "sexy" members of the party (is sexy not heterosexual enough, should that be "eye-candy"... Nah, fuck it. Sexy) I can totally get behind. Thorin Oakenshield (Played by Richard Armitage [Captain America, Robin Hood, Strike Back, Spooks]) and Fili (Played by Dean O'Gorman[Xena, Young Hercules, Toy Love]) are not only very, very attractive, but I also totally buy them as fantasy creatures from Middle Earth. The actors playing Balin, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Oin, Gloin, Nori, Dori and Ori weren't overly familiar to me. Though Graham McTavish (Green Street Hooligans 2, Rambo, The Bill, Rome, King Arthur, Erik the Viking, Dante's Inferno, Call of Duty franchise, The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Dawn of War II) as Dwalin is clearly a fuckin' badass. I do have some qualms with changes made, not from novel to screen, but from LotR to The Hobbit. Given that both are Peter Jackson's work, and they're meant to be in his world, why was it necessary to change the appearance of firmly grounded canonical things? The Goblins of The Hobbit (above) are great, but look nothing like the original ones. The Wargs seem to have actually taken a backwards step in my eyes, and are also unfamiliar in this screen world. It's difficult to back up my statements about "It's okay to not be the same as the book, it's Jackson's world" if Jackson keeps changing his mind about what his world even looks like. Azog not looking like any other orc was fine by me though. He was an incredible looking bad guy, with a back story, a great actor behind him (Australian Manau Bennett [Bikie Wars: Brothers in Arms, Spartacus series, Sinbad and the Minotaur, 30 Days of Night, The Condemned]). Ultimately, the only killer for me about The Hobbit, is knowing that despite the fact that it's completely finished, it's still only being released at a rate of one film a year, and that hurts, because honestly, The Hobbit's great. Watch it as an adaptation of the book, watch it as a fantasy epic, watch it as the LotR prequel, watch it as a heart-warming tale of adventure from mediocrity, watch it as a cinematic marvel, or just plain watch it as Beard-Porn, whatever, it's maybe not life changing, but it's enjoyable as Hell. 79% -Gimly

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Movie details, the hobbit collection.

The Hobbit collection is a three-part epic fantasy-adventure film directed and produced by Peter Jackson and based on J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novel of the same name. The trilogy of films are set in Middle-earth 60 years before "The Lord of the Rings", and will act as a prequel to Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

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Fantasy & Sci-Fi

The hobbit: an unexpected journey.

: Bilbo Baggins is swept into an epic quest to reclaim Erebor with the help of Gandalf the Grey and 13 Dwarves led by Thorin Oakenshield.

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Fantasy & Sci-Fi, Action, Epic Battles, Adventure, Epic Quests, Magic

Release Year

Rating information, about this movie.

The adventure follows Bilbo Baggins, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim Erebor with the help of Gandalf the Grey and 13 Dwarves led by the legendary warrior Thorin Oakenshield.

Cast and Crew

Starring: Ian Mckellen , Martin Freeman , Richard Armitage

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• Denver Post Lisa Kennedy To its own narrative detriment, "The Hobbit" works hard to lay the framework for what will follow. Certainly that's one way to set out on a trilogy, but it's surely not the best.
• San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle If you loved the earlier films, these are moments you will hold on to, but they're very few, and they're not enough.
• Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer My first thought in watching The Hobbit was: Do we really need this movie? It was my last thought, too.
• Richard Roeper.com Richard Roeper There's no denying the majesty in Peter Jackson's visuals but he's taken a relatively slim children's book and stretched it beyond the limits.
• Washington Post Ann Hornaday "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" has finally arrived, not on wings of gossamer fancy but with a hairy-footed thud.
• Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com Cary Darling His first installment of The Hobbit, Tolkien's relatively slim precursor to the sprawling "Rings" saga, is a technically impressive but bloated adventure that makes you feel every one of its 169 minutes.
• Dallas Morning News Chris Vognar I was impressed with how much of the story's good humor Jackson and Co. manage to weave into the spectacle. It's there in the close shave with a gang of hungry trolls, and it really lifts off once Andy Serkis' uncanny Gollum enters the picture.
• Rolling Stone Peter Travers Part One of director Peter Jackson's planned film trilogy of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit forces audiences to run an obstacle course before the fun kicks in.
• Shockya.com Perri Nemiroff Two thirds is so packed with charming characters, stellar visuals and sense of adventure, it makes that other third come across as much more of a failure than it really is.
• Movie Mom Nell Minow Jackson himself seems to miss the forest of the story for the literal trees.
• The New York Review of Books J. Hoberman There is a good deal to be said about Peter Jackson's long-awaited and exceedingly long adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, most of it bad.
• The Atlantic Christopher Orr It frequently seems as though Jackson was less interested in making The Hobbit than in remaking his own fabulously successful Lord of the Rings series.
• leonardmaltin.com Leonard Maltin Are the creatures amazingly rendered? Yes. Have we seen their lifelike equal onscreen before? No.
• Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern An overlong adventure enlivened by wonders.
• CNN.com Tom Charity An Unexpected Journey is a major comedown, a muddle-headed and cumbersome piece of filmmaking that betrays Jackson's mercenary motives -- Tolkien's book, too.
• NPR Bob Mondello Between its lighter tone and a decade's worth of improvements in digital film techniques, there should be enough of a novelty factor to delight most fans.
• Slant Magazine R. Kurt Osenlund The tone of Jackson's latest is, appropriately, much more jovial than that of Rings, which unfolds in an era far more stricken with despair.
• New York Times A.O. Scott Tolkien's inventive, episodic tale of a modest homebody on a dangerous journey has been turned into an overscale and plodding spectacle.
• Chicago Reader Ben Sachs Little about the storytelling suggests a beating heart beneath the visuals; once the journey has begun, the characters find themselves in life-threatening danger with stupefying regularity.
• Detroit News Tom Long The last hour of this movie is pretty much nonstop, and it's a gas.

Take Plex everywhere

The Best Quote From Each Middle-earth Movie

"It's mine. My quote. My precious."

Juggernaut fantasy franchises are aplenty in the modern landscape of blockbuster-focused filmmaking, but Peter Jackson 's Middle-earth Saga will forever be incredibly hard to top. Taking place in the intricately complex and richly expansive world created by J.R.R. Tolkien , these six movies are full of fascinating world-building, compelling characters, beautifully written storylines, and, of course, highly memorable and quotable dialogue.

From The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King , the characters of Middle-earth have a very particular way of talking. Lines of dialogue in these films are often poetic and always full of rich meaning ; not a single word is wasted. Of course, though, there is always one quote in each film that stands out above the rest as the most impactful. And while each fan might have their favorite line, few can deny these quotes are the best in their respective movies .

Warning: There are spoilers ahead!

6 "All We Have to Decide Is What to Do With the Time That Is Given to Us."

'the lord of the rings: the fellowship of the ring' (2001).

The one that started it all, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is still considered one of the best-ever first films in movie franchises . It's about Frodo Baggins, a meek Hobbit from the Shire, who sets out with eight companions on a journey to destroy the One Ring to save Middle-earth from the rise of the evil tyrant Sauron. It's an incredible way to start a trilogy full of fascinating world-building but also riveting stories that perfectly stand on their own two feet.

One of the movie's most powerful and thematically important scenes is a moment of rest before the relentlessly suspenseful action that takes place in the Mines of Moria. Here, Frodo is sorrowful about how the Ring has impacted his life, wishing "none of this had happened." In one of his usual inspirational speeches, Gandalf gives him words of encouragement , delivering this insightful and poignant line. He invites him to find comfort in the prospect that, perhaps, it was fate that put him in the spot he's in and to think of how to make his struggles worth it. The line is profound and somewhat esoterical , very much in keeping with the trilogy's themes.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

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5 "There's Some Good in this World, Mr. Frodo, and It's Worth Fighting For."

Samwise gamgee (sean astin) - 'the lord of the rings: the two towers' (2002).

With some moments of exhilarating action and others of profound emotion, as well as one of the franchise's most underrated scenes , The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is one of the best middle films in any movie trilogy. The story sees Frodo and Sam edge closer to Mordor with the help of the shifty Gollum while the rest of the Fellowship takes a stand against Sauron and Saruman.

Some would argue (and deservedly so) that the single best moment of dialogue in the whole saga is Sam's stirring speech at the end of the movie. Here, in a beautifully written monologue, Sam lays out the themes of the narrative and the causes that make their struggle worth the pain , ending by telling Frodo why they must keep going: Because "there's some good in this world," "and it's worth fighting for." Flawlessly delivered by Sean Astin , one of the many actors robbed of an Oscar nomination for his performance in the trilogy, it's a terrific speech that works as the perfect transition to Return of the King .

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

4 "my friends, you bow to no one.", aragorn (viggo mortensen) - 'the lord of the rings: the return of the king' (2003).

One of the movies with the most Oscar nominations in history , tied as the one with the most wins, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is the trilogy's rousing conclusion. In it, Gandalf and Aragorn lead the armies of Men to fight Sauron so that Frodo and Sam may approach Mount Doom unnoticed and destroy the One Ring.

Of the movie's numerous moments of emotion and excitement, few are as touching as the scene in the third act where Aragorn is crowned in Minas Tirith after Sauron is finally defeated and Middle-earth is in peace. Here, seeing the four Hobbits bow to him, Strider tells them, "You bow to no one," and the entire congregation bows to them instead. It's a beautiful moment that makes it hard not to shed a few tears , watching the praise of these four brave men who proved that their size didn't determine their worth.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

3 "i've found it is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk, that keeps the darkness at bay. simple acts of kindness and love.", gandalf (ian mckellen) 'the hobbit: an unexpected journey' (2012).

Nine years after the Lord of the Rings trilogy, fans were eager to return to Middle-earth; The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey scratched that itch. Not many would call it one of the best prequels of all time , but it certainly brought lots of interesting things to the table, as well as offering the thrill of returning characters and familiar locations. Sixty years before the events of The Lord of the Rings , it's about a Hobbit who joins a wizard and a party of dwarves on a quest to reclaim the dwarves's home from the dragon Smaug.

When the White Council gathered in Rivendel to discuss how to handle the situation of Sauron's supposed return, one of the old familiar faces that viewers get to see is Lady Galadriel. Here, Galadriel asks Gandalf why he chose Bilbo to join their company. Unsure, Gandalf answers that he finds tremendous power in the "everyday deeds of ordinary folk" like Bilbo and that the Hobbit gives him courage in their dark times. It's a touching line, as well as a reminder of the core message at the heart of the whole saga : surprising amounts of courage lie in even the most unexpected of people.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

2 "if this is to end in fire, then we will all burn together", torin oakenshield ii (richard armitage) - 'the hobbit: the desolation of smaug' (2013).

The Hobbit trilogy is filled with memorable and iconic lines of dialogue , and The Desolation of Smaug is no exception. This sequel follows the dwarves, the hobbit Bilbo and the wizard Gandalf on the continuation of their quest to reclaim Erebor from Smaug the dragon. Meanwhile, Bilbo grows more familiar with his newly acquired mysterious ring.

In one of the film's most pivotal scenes, after narrowly escaping Smaug's deadly fire, the dwarves and Bilbo find themselves trapped in a room full of dead dwarves. "The last of our kin," Balin mutters. Though the team wants to play it safe and hide in the mines, Thorin refuses to die, "clawing for breath," instead ordering his friends to help him fight the dragon in the forges, delivering this rousing sentence that could bring chills to anyone. Despite its seemingly inspiring nature, this line speaks to the arrogance of this dwarf who shook the fate of Middle-earth and to the terrible effect that dragon sickness had on his heart.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

1 "if more people valued home above gold, this world would be a merrier place.", torin oakenshield ii (richard armitage) - 'the hobbit: the battle of the five armies' (2014).

Even if it's typically considered the weakest installment in the Middle-earth saga, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies still has an awful lot to offer those who love Tolkien's Legendarium. Marketed as the epic conclusion of the franchise, it's about Thorin's company being forced to take part in a war against an array of combatants to keep the Lonely Mountain from falling into the hands of the rising darkness.

The film is fun and action-packed, particularly if one watches the R-rated extended edition . It brings the arc of all major characters to a satisfying close—including those that are poignantly tragic. This includes Thorin Oakenshield, who dies in combat against Azog, the Orc-lord. The last person he sees is Bilbo, in whose arms he takes his last breath. His last conversation with the Hobbit is deeply moving , telling him to return to the comfort of the Shire and praising his valuing of "home above gold," which encapsulates one of the driving themes of the Hobbit trilogy .

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

NEXT: The Best Quotes from 'The Lord of the Rings' Trilogy, Ranked

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Home » Endings Explained

A Journey’s Ending Is A Heart-Wrenching Reminder Of Life’s Unfairness

WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS

The ending of  A Journey is unexpectedly devastating and speaks about the true frailty of human life.

It always seemed clear that the Netflix film would build to a tear-jerking conclusion, but I was nonetheless taken aback by its poignancy. There’s a desperate feeling to the whole endeavor of Bryan and Kristoff trying to convince Shane to reconsider treatment for her cancer during their trip to Tasmania, but the late reversal is a real saddening shock.

Why Did Shane Refuse Treatment?

Having already lived through cancer once, Shane refuses treatment when she gets the devastating news that the terrible illness has returned. Instead, she makes up a “magic list” of things she wants to do. Kristoff, aka “Tupe”, decided to help by paying for himself, Shane, and her husband Bryan to travel to Tasmania and tick as many items off Shane’s bucket list as possible, including helping her reconnect with her estranged father, Mr. T.

Secretly, the men are hoping Shane will change her mind about the treatment after fulfilling everything on her list.

After their experience seeing the little penguins, Shane, Bryan, Kristoff, and Mr. T check into a nearby motel. Mr. T accidentally slips up and tells Shane that Bryan’s been asking about cancer specialists. Furious, Shane confronts her husband, who’s unapologetic about wanting her to live. Sadly, her cancer has metastasized to other organs and she’s unlikely to survive even with treatment. That’s why she didn’t want to get the chemo.

Shane’s decision, and then her further decision to subsequently hide her justification, speaks to that essential question of how we’d live the remainder of our lives if we knew the clock was ticking down to zero. Shane thinks living large temporarily is better than suffering indefinitely. It’s easy to see Bryan’s point of view, though; he wants his wife to survive. It’s hard for someone to accept the death of a loved one, even if they have already resigned themselves to it.

Shane and Bryan Renew Their Vows

A Journey | Image via Netflix

The following day, Mr. T. leads Shane to a nearby church, where Bryan and his best man, Tupe, are already waiting. Mr. T apologizes for not being around to walk her down the aisle at the first wedding but is grateful he can do it now. Through tears of joy, Bryan and Shane exchange rings and reassure each other of their love, even after they’ve fought. 

On the last day of their trip, the trio go to the beach. Shane thanks Bryan and Tupe for bringing her to Australia and making her happy. She then reveals that she’s decided to get treatment for the cancer and hopefully get to experience Australia the following year. It’s safe to say, Bryan and Tupe are overjoyed to hear this. 

Here, I believed  A Journey  was building towards a happy ending. I was wrong.

Bryan’s Unexpected Demise

Shane and Bryan spend their first night back home in great spirits. But in the morning, Bryan collapses unexpectedly. Shane calls an ambulance, and he’s rushed to the hospital, but the doctors can’t do anything to save him. A devastated Shane has to listen to the doctor telling Tupe her beloved husband died from an aneurysm. 

At Bryan’s funeral, Shane notes how all the arrangements were the ones she had planned for herself and how she never expected to lose Bryan. Shane and Tupe go back to her home and she’s holding Bryan’s ashes in the same urn she’d picked out after first receiving her diagnosis. 

From beyond the grave, Bryan had one last surprise for Shane. He arranged for her favorite singer, Ogie, to come and give her a private performance. 

The way  A Journey  plays with expectations here is devastating. The idea of all the preparations Shane made for her death having to suddenly be applied to her husband’s has a real poignancy, especially given that Shane had already reversed her own decision to accept death.

Tupe Is Left Alone

Tupe decided to take Bryan’s advice, so he told his agent he’d like to get out of his comfort zone. He pitches the idea of a movie about Bryan and Shane’s love story. 

Shane still keeps her promise to her husband and proceeds with the cancer treatments. Tupe and her mother stay by her side through the ordeal. Unfortunately, Shane isn’t responding well to the chemo. When Tupe visits to share his recent Film Festival win with her, Shane confesses that she misses her husband too much to fight the cancer off. 

A while after Shane’s passing, Tupe visits the viewpoint in Tasmania alone and leaves the two penguin toys, Bryan’s necklace, and the film festival award he got for the movie about them. 

The film ends with Tupe inviting a woman who recognized him from the movie he made about Bryan and Shane’s love story out for a coffee. 

You can also check out my thoughts on the film overall in my review of A Journey .

Article by Lori Meek

Lori Meek has been a Ready Steady Cut contributing writer since September 2022 and has had over 400 published articles since. She studied Film and Television at Southampton Solent University, where she gained most of her knowledge and passion for the entertainment industry. Lori’s work is also featured on platforms such as TBreak Media and ShowFaves.

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Want to See This Film? Movie Studios Won’t Let You.

As in the case of ‘Coyote vs. Acme,’ sometimes an entertainment company sees more value in not selling you its products.

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By T.M. Brown

In early February , strange news appeared about Warner Brothers Discovery’s plans for one of its films, a live-action-with-animation spin on Looney Tunes called “Coyote vs. Acme.” The studio did not plan to release the movie. It had tried to sell it to a third party — one industry report said Netflix, Amazon and Paramount were all interested — but no deal materialized. Audiences seemed unlikely to ever see the thing.

All this, industry watchers agreed, was not about cinematic merit. It was about accounting. Warner spent about $70 million making the film and might have gradually recouped that amount the usual way: by releasing the movie to paying audiences in theaters and on streaming platforms. But it might instead shelve the movie, interring it in a metaphorical graveyard and writing it off as a total, immediate loss, rather than absorbing that loss over quarters to come. One report estimated that this might net some $35 million to $40 million in tax savings, though a Warner spokesperson described that scenario as “inaccurate,” adding that no final decision has been made.

Studios have been doing this sort of arithmetic a lot lately. Over the last few years, Warner — which also owns channels like TNT and TBS and streaming platforms like Max — has whittled down its content-and-development holdings in an effort to reduce costs and chip away at its $45 billion gross debt. Near-complete movies have been mothballed, underperforming shows pulled from streaming libraries. Disney+, Hulu and Paramount+ have made similar decisions, roiling an already-baffling patchwork of streaming options. You can now watch an HBO property like “Westworld” on Amazon Prime Video but not through the network that made it in the first place.

The purgatory of “Coyote vs. Acme” galvanized audiences in an interesting way. Unlike other high-profile cancellations — say, the 2022 film “Batgirl,” axed during postproduction and called “not releasable” by the head of (the Warner-owned) DC Studios — “Coyote” was a completed film. It was also, by all accounts, good ; Will Forte, one of its stars, called it “incredible.” This wasn’t the movie’s first funeral, either. News of its cancellation was first reported on Nov. 9 — followed, later that day, by an anonymous member of the movie’s production team posting a behind-the-scenes reel of the crew’s work on YouTube. The video was taken down after a copyright claim, but it had already revealed some of the ingenious mayhem that audiences would miss out on: squished cars, real clouds of dust kicked up by an animated roadrunner, charming prop renderings of the cartoons’ rocket skates and hand-painted signs. Say what you will about the artistic value of a film based on a cartoon, but this movie looked like fun .

The backlash to Warner’s reported decision might have helped prompt executives to try selling “Coyote” on the open market. A February report in The Wrap suggested that Warner rebuffed other studios after they failed to meet the asking price, said to be even higher than the studio’s own production cost. (The Warner spokesperson says no formal bid was made by any of the distributors who viewed the film for possible acquisition.) Another theory, floated to me by someone who worked on the movie, was that executives were concerned about embarrassment if “Coyote” turned out to be a hit for someone else. Either way, it felt as though the only parts of the film most people would see were promotional stills shared by Eric Bauza, a voice actor who worked on the film. The movie was based on a 1990 New Yorker piece by the humorist Ian Frazier, which had Coyote filing a lawsuit over the indignities he had endured at the hands of Acme’s unreliable explosives and physics-defying spring shoes. In one image, Forte sits next to his cartoon client, who wears a familiar dopey expression as he endures this legal showdown with his mail-order tormentors.

You can picture the high jinks. In fact, a small army of designers, animators and demolition experts spent years imagining them. Those people want their work to be seen. A sizable audience wants to pay money to see it. Yet that mutuality isn’t enough. Millions of dollars and thousands of hours went into creating something that could simply vanish into accounting.

Art has always been commerce, and studios like Warner have long controlled the media we’re offered. For almost a century, they have scrapped projects and let ideas languish, mostly without our ever knowing much about it. We might complain today about pop culture governed by algorithms and data, but it’s not as though 20th-century decisions about which movies hit Blockbuster or which songs dominated the radio were based on some high-minded meritocracy; we have always been at the mercy of boardrooms.

What has changed is our awareness of how such things work. There was a time when only the subscribers of Hollywood trade magazines knew much about which movies were in development, to say nothing of which were canned. But audiences today are as intimately acquainted with upcoming projects as they are with the financial maneuvering behind them.

This isn’t just a matter of more of us reading entertainment news. Normal people have been forced to attend to this stuff — baroque tangles of licensing and distribution rights — just to be consumers. Feel like streaming a favorite sitcom? You’ll need to know which subscription matches that media and then keep up with whatever agreements, disputes or mergers will dictate its availability or shift it into another company’s library. Even ownership of media has become an intricate concept. You might “purchase” a movie from a platform like Amazon Prime Video or Apple TV+, but you’re still subject to the vagaries of the deal; things may simply disappear from your digital library because of expiring agreements.

The mechanics have been laid bare, and it is consumers who have been burdened with navigating them. It is particularly maddening that this visibility doesn’t translate to malleability: No matter how well you know the ecosystem, you remain under the thumb of corporate arrangements. One parent I know described a child’s panic when beloved songs or videos would vanish from wherever they previously accessed them. It is not easy to explain digital rights management and international licensing to a 5-year-old, and yet it’s precisely those complexities that might dictate whether or not they can watch “CoComelon” on vacation.

Normal people have been forced to attend to this stuff just to be consumers.

Consider too the barrage of marketing campaigns intended to monopolize our attention through every stage of a film’s development, from conception to release. Marvel Studios has its “phases” announcements, in which it outlines years of planned movies and shows in splashy events designed to keep fans in a frenzy about the long-term strategy of a major media company, as though a shareholder meeting has broken out at Comic-Con.

As much as a satirical legal filing written from the perspective of a cartoon coyote’s lawyer can speak to the moment, there’s a section toward the end of Frazier’s story that maps out a bit of the daffy labyrinth consumers now face. “As the Court is no doubt aware, Defendant has a virtual monopoly of manufacture and sale of goods required by Mr. Coyote’s work,” Frazier wrote. The coyote had “come to mistrust Defendant’s products” but had “no other domestic source of supply to which to turn.” This is one impact of media consolidation: Studios can work very hard to hold your attention before deciding, at the last possible moment, that they’re better off throwing out artists’ work than letting you pay money to see it. “Coyote vs. Acme,” the Warner spokesperson says, “remains available for acquisition.” Just not by you.

An earlier version of this article refers incorrectly to the voice work of Eric Bauza in the film “Coyote vs. Acme.” While Bauza provided the voices for several characters in the film, Wile E. Coyote was not one of them.

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A Journey (2024)

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Refusing treatment for her cancer, a woman goes on a road trip across Tasmania to check off items on her bucket list with her husband and best friend.

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