Warner Bros. Discovery’s stewardship of the Looney Tunes brand has been, to put it mildly, a little rough. Since it merged itself into being back in 2022, the David Zaslav-run company has frequently seemed to work aggressively to distance itself from the classic animation brand, shopping its library of classic cartoons off to Tubi, writing off HBO Max-intended films like Coyote Vs. Acme for tax purposes, and selling distribution rights for Looney Tunes movies—including The Day The Earth Blew Up, and the eventually, begrudgingly revived Coyote—off to much smaller companies like Ketchup Entertainment. All of which makes it slightly surprising to learn that the company’s animation studio, Warner Bros. Pictures Animation, is now embarking on a full-fledged film centered on murine speedster Speedy Gonzales, developed and directed by The Book Of Life‘s Jorge R. Gutierrez.
This is per THR, which notes that Gutierrez—who’s spent the last few years under an overall deal at Netflix, which produced some animated sequences and a now-canceled movie co-written with comedian Gabriel Iglesias, I, Chihuahua—began teasing the possibility of the film last month. Now it’s official, with WBPA president Bill Damaschke stating that, “We couldn’t be more excited to have [Gutierrez] reimagining Speedy Gonzales, one of our most beloved Looney Tunes characters, for today’s global audience.”
Originally created in the 1950s—where his first “official” short actually won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film—Speedy most recently appeared in film in 2021’s Space Jam: A New Legacy, where he was voiced by Iglesias. Warner Bros. previously attempted to develop a film version of the character in the 2010s, with The Book Of Life‘s Eugenio Derbez in the role; in an interview in 2024, Derbez suggested the project was killed off by studio worries that it was “politically incorrect,” part of a long-running argument about whether the character constitutes a harmful ethnic stereotype. “The only ones offended are the Americans,” the Mexican actor asserted, “But we love Speedy Gonzales. He’s smart. He outsmarts the cats. He’s a hero. He gets cheese for his people. He’s fast.”