Why Bugs Bunny Doesn’t Appear In The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie

Considering the legacy and position of the Looney Tunes in pop culture over the past 90 or so years, it’s hard to believe that there’s never been a full-length animated Looney Tunes film in theaters. Sure, the gang appeared on movie screens in short films back in the 1930s, there have been direct-to-video movies featuring them in the years since, and they memorably played key roles in live-action/animation hybrids like the “Space Jam” movies (the first of which was almost written by Spike Lee!) and “Looney Tunes: Back in Action,” but they’ve never led their own hand-drawn animated feature film … until now.

Given the historic nature of “The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie,” then, one might expect that the most famous Looney Tunes character of all, Bugs Bunny, would be the natural choice for the lead character. But Bugs doesn’t actually appear in this film. Instead, it’s a two-hander between Daffy Duck and Porky Pig, who were raised in this story as brothers and spend the runtime trying to hold down jobs so they can afford to save their childhood home. (It gets much weirder, but that’s the short version.)

So what gives? Why wasn’t Bugs in this movie? I asked that question to co-writer/director Pete Browngardt in a recent interview, and he provided an answer I wasn’t expecting:

“Well, he was busy. [laughs] No, that’s a good question. Basically, I feel like … my approach to coming up with this and pitching it was, I was worried that Bugs — usually the character, his villains want to kill him, and it sort of limits the opportunities of how much you can do, storytelling-wise, a little bit.”

Because Bugs always triumphs and has such an “everything will work out, ain’t I a stinker” vibe to him, I never intellectually clocked that his life is constantly in danger, but Browngardt has a point there. Still, that wasn’t the only reason Bugs doesn’t show up in this new film.

“But I also loved the buddy idea, and I wanted to do a buddy comedy with Porky and Daffy,” Browngardt continued. “They’ve played a lot of genre roles, so that led to it, too. But to the studio’s credit, they didn’t pressure us to throw in cameos or anything. I thought they were going to, but they didn’t, so it was good.”

It’s legitimately surprising to hear that Warner Bros. Animation did not try to force the filmmakers to cram certain characters into this story. Why? Look no further than the last big Looney Tunes-related project, “Space Jam: A New Legacy.” That was a dispiriting IP mishmash that squeezed in references to “Casablanca,” “A Clockwork Orange,” and “Game of Thrones” for extremely little narrative payoff, so it’s refreshing to hear that the studio wasn’t intent on repeating a similar mistake again here.

You can hear the full conversation with Browngardt on today’s episode of the /Film Daily podcast, where he speaks alongside Daffy and Porky voice actor Eric Bauza, who does both voices on the show:

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“The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie” hits theaters tomorrow, March 14, 2025.