There has been a lot of talk about Dave Green’s film Coyote vs. Acme over the last few years, after Warner Bros. announced they were shelving the film despite it being completed. Controversy arose when word spread that Warner Bros. Discovery opted to take a $30 million tax write-off rather than release the film. Following the backlash, the studio decided to allow the filmmakers to shop the film to other distributors. Ketchup Entertainment eventually acquired the rights, and it will now be released in the United States on August 28, 2026. After the long journey to get this film released, I sincerely hope that audiences will show up to see it during its theatrical run. I’m not just saying that because people worked hard on the movie and deserve to have their work seen. That’s true, but also the movie itself is a lot of fun.

Kent Jones' Late Fame is a quiet indie drama that seems simple on the surface but has so much to say about art, aging, fame, and generational divides. Based on Austrian author Arthur Schnitzler's posthumously published novella of the same name, Samy Burch's screenplay transports the story to modern-day New York City. This is not the first time a Schnitzler novella has been reimagined as a story set in contemporary New York; Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999) similarly transformed Schnitzler's Dream Story into a modern city setting. Both adaptations demonstrate the enduring relevance of Schnitzler's themes across different time periods and countries. The publication history of Late Fame itself creates an intriguing parallel with the film's central premise. Schnitzler wrote the novella in 1894–1895, but it remained unpublished until 2014. Likewise, the film follows a poet whose work goes unrecognized until decades after it was written. Willem Dafoe stars as that poet, Ed Saxberger, and his performance is the glue holding Late Fame together.