ACME ‘LOONEY TUNES’ MOVIE FINDS NEW MOMENTUM WITH ‘X-MEN: FIRST CLASS’ WRITERS

X-Men: First Class scribes Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz are going a little looney, and directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa may soon join them.

The power writing duo has been hired to write the untitled Acme movie project being developed by Warner Bros. At the same time, Ficarra and Requa, who directed Crazy Stupid Love for the studio, are in early negotiations to direct the project, which has its roots in Warners’ classic Looney Tunes cartoons.

Steve Carell, who toplined Crazy Stupid Love, is attached to star in the project, which is being produced by Dan Lin and Roy Lee. The latter two were behind the mega-successful and franchise-launching The Lego Movie, and the studio and producers are envisioning the Acme project as an event movie that will also launch a franchise.

Plot details are being kept under an anvil, but the Acme Corporation is a fictional manufacturer of crazy and sometimes dangerous products (that also tend to malfunction at the most inopportune times) that are used by many a Looney Tunes character. The company’s products are most commonly used by Wile E. Coyote in his never-ending quest to capture the Road Runner.
The movie, however, would not center on the Looney Tunes characters and is being planned as a CG/live-action hybrid.
The project has been in development since 2010 when Kevin and Dan Hageman sold an original pitch.

Chantal Nong and Jon Gonda are overseeing for the studio.
Miller and Stentz continue to be among the hottest writing teams in town, and earlier in the summer were tapped to pen the Power Rangers movie for Lionsgate. The pair have screenwriting credit on Marvel’s Thor and are working on a Terminator TV series. They are repped by WME and Principato-Young Entertainment.

Ficarra and Requa (CAA, McKuin Frankel) recently wrapped Focus, with Will Smith and Margot Robbie, for Warners, which will release the heist movie Feb. 27, 2015.