Warner Bros Bets Jorge Gutiérrez Can Revive Speedy Gonzales

Warner Bros. has set Jorge R. Gutiérrez to direct an animated Speedy Gonzales movie, a character the studio once treated as too politically incorrect for a feature. Plot details have not been shared, and a writer has not been named.

The hire became public on January 16, 2026. Eight months later the project is still a development bet, while the last finished Looney Tunes film reached theaters only after Warner sold it.

Jorge R. Gutiérrez Gets the Fastest Mouse in Mexico

He was born in Mexico City and raised in Tijuana. In December 2025 he posted a photo of himself holding a Speedy figurine, wearing a straw hat and a red bandana like the mouse, and asked followers to guess what he might be developing at Warner Bros. Pictures Animation.

View this post on Instagram

Warner Bros. Pictures Animation president Bill Damaschke said Gutiérrez is a singular storyteller whose voice, artistry and cultural perspective make every project feel both timeless and new. The studio, Damaschke said, wants him reimagining one of its most beloved Looney Tunes characters for a global audience.

I could not be more excited to dance the Mexican Hat Dance with Speedy, such a legendary and iconic character! I can’t wait to share with the world the amazing and spicy dish we are cooking at Warner Bros. Pictures Animation!

Jorge R. Gutiérrez, director

That line is the wager in costume. Warner is not handing Speedy to a house director who will trace old cels. It is handing him to the Mexican auteur who already dressed as the mouse.

A 16-Year Speedy Film That Kept Stalling

Speedy has been trying to reach theaters since 2010. That is 16 years of attachments, format changes and quiet deaths, which is longer than many films take from pitch to premiere.

THE SPEEDY FEATURE THAT WOULD NOT STAY DEAD

1. 2010: Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema announce a live-action and animated hybrid, with George Lopez attached to voice Speedy.
2. April 2016: Eugenio Derbez is attached to voice an animated version and to produce with Dylan Sellers and Ben Odell.
3. April 2024: Derbez says the movie is unlikely, because studios are afraid the character now reads as politically incorrect.
4. December 2025: Gutiérrez teases a Speedy feature at Warner Bros. Pictures Animation on Instagram.
5. January 16, 2026: Warner Bros. sets Gutiérrez to direct. No writer is named and no plot is shared.
6. July 2026: Speedy remains on Gutiérrez’s list of upcoming films after he walks away from a separate Amazon series.

The Lopez version was meant to mix live people and cartoons, the same trick Warner later used on Space Jam and on Coyote vs. Acme. The Derbez version was already a cartoon. Gutiérrez’s film is a cartoon too, which means the studio is no longer trying to hide Speedy inside a human world.

Cartoon Network Pulled Him. Mexican Fans Fought Back

An early Speedy showed up in Robert McKimson’s 1953 short Cat-Tails for Two. Friz Freleng and Hawley Pratt rebuilt him for the 1955 Merrie Melodies short Speedy Gonzales, released September 17, 1955. Starving mice at the Mexico-United States border hire him to raid a cheese factory guarded by Sylvester. He runs the cheese home. The cat eats the traps, the mines and the humiliation.

That short won Best Short Subject, Cartoons at the 28th Academy Awards on March 21, 1956, with Edward Selzer credited as producer. The other nominees were Good Will to Men, The Legend of Rock-a-bye Point and No Hunting. Seventy-one years later, the same mouse is the problem Warner wants a Mexican director to solve.

The fight was never only about the sombrero. Critics pointed at Speedy’s slow, sometimes drunk friends, at the accent Mel Blanc gave him, and at cousin Slowpoke Rodriguez. ABC pulled the shorts in the 1980s. Cartoon Network kept them off US air from 1999, and spokeswoman Laurie Goldberg said in 2002 that they had been off because of ethnic stereotypes. The League of United Latin American Citizens asked the network to put him back. The shorts returned in 2002.

THE TIMES THE STUDIO BLINKED

• ABC in the 1980s: The shorts leave broadcast over the stereotype complaint.
• Cartoon Network, 1999 to 2002: Speedy sits out the US rotation until Latino groups and fans force a return.
• The Derbez film, by 2024: A voice star who wanted the part says the studio is too afraid to make it.

Derbez had spent years telling Warner that Mexico loves the mouse. In 2024 he was done pretending the holdup was a scheduling problem.

The only ones offended are the Americans, 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.

Eugenio Derbez, actor, 2024

Gabriel Iglesias voiced Speedy in Space Jam: A New Legacy in 2021, and that film took in $163 million worldwide. The cameo did not settle the argument. It only proved Warner would still use Speedy as a supporting gag while refusing him a movie of his own.

Mexican September art still paints him in the patriotic month, sombrero and all. The people the shorts were supposed to insult keep claiming the hero who stole the cheese. That split is the bet. Warner is now asking Gutiérrez to make a version a global audience will pay for without losing the viewers who never wanted him gone.

What Gutiérrez Did With Mexican Folklore on Screen

The studio is not hiring a first-time tourist. Gutiérrez co-created El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera for Nickelodeon with his wife, artist Sandra Equihua, and that series won Emmys. In 2021 he made Maya and the Three for Netflix, a nine-episode, four-and-a-half-hour event that took 4 Emmys and 2 Annie Awards, including best children’s television.

His only studio feature is The Book of Life, released by 20th Century Fox in 2014, produced by Guillermo del Toro, and voiced by Diego Luna, Zoe Saldaña and Channing Tatum. It is the one hard theatrical number attached to his name, and it is the number Warner is buying.

THE GUTIÉRREZ RECORD WARNER IS BUYING

The Book of Life took in $99.8 million worldwide on that $50 million budget, nearly twice what it cost, with $10.4 million from Mexico. It did not become a franchise. It did prove Gutiérrez can sell Day of the Dead design, mariachi color and a Mexican love story to family audiences without sanding the culture off.

That is the look people want from Speedy, not another glossy mascot standing next to a live-action star. If the movie arrives looking like Space Jam, the hire was a press release. If it arrives looking like The Book of Life, Warner actually placed the bet it announced.

Warner Sold the Last Looney Tunes Movie for $50 Million

Space Jam: A New Legacy in 2021 is still the last Looney Tunes feature Warner itself released in theaters. Coyote vs. Acme, a live-action and cartoon hybrid about Wile E. Coyote suing the Acme Corporation, was finished and then shelved in November 2023 so the company could take a $30 million write-off. After a public fight, Ketchup Entertainment bought the global rights in 2025 for $50 million, the same dollar figure as The Book of Life’s production budget, and opened the film in the United States on August 28, 2026.

Dave Green directed. Will Forte, Lana Condor and John Cena star. The production budget sat at $70 million. The film opened to $15.9 million in North America, a modest start for a movie Warner once planned to bury, and a reminder that Looney Tunes still puts people in seats when someone is willing to show the work.

THE LOONEY TUNES THEATRICAL LEDGER

Speedy is now the Looney Tunes movie Warner still owns. That is a strange place to stand. The studio that would not put Wile E. Coyote on a screen is asking a Mexican director to put the most argued-over mouse in the library on one.

No Writer, No Plot and Still on His Slate

Industry databases still have the feature listed as in development. As of July 2026, after Gutiérrez killed his own Amazon series Punky Duck within 36 hours of its announcement, Speedy Gonzales was still named among his upcoming jobs, alongside I, Chihuahua and La Venganza Rodríguez. The AI fight was a different fire. The mouse survived it.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The director: Jorge R. Gutiérrez is attached at Warner Bros. Pictures Animation.
• The format: A fully animated feature, not a live-action hybrid.
• The history: A Speedy movie has been in some form of development since 2010.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The script: No writer has been announced and no story has been shared.
• The voice: Iglesias, Derbez and Lopez have all been in Speedy’s orbit; none is attached to this version.
• The date: There is no release window and no public production start.

A director in a bandana is not a shooting schedule. Warner has made this promise before, with other Mexican stars, and walked off. Gutiérrez is still on the job, the studio still has the character, and the film still has no writer. That is the whole bet, unpaid.