Warner Bros. Gives First Look at New Daffy Duck Short Ahead of November Release

Warner Bros. has shared the first images from “Daffy Season,” the studio’s upcoming theatrical Looney Tunes short, giving Trevor Decker News and a handful of other entertainment outlets an early look at the film ahead of its wide release later this year. The images arrived today alongside a wave of new details about the short’s production, offering the most substantial look yet at what will be the character’s first true return to the big screen in over a decade.

“Daffy Season” is set to open in theaters nationwide on November 6, playing in front of Warner Bros. Pictures Animation’s “The Cat in the Hat,” the studio’s first fully animated theatrical feature. The pairing puts a classic Looney Tunes short back where it started, ahead of a major studio release, something that has not happened since 2012’s “Daffy’s Rhapsody” ran before “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island.” Before its wide bow, “Daffy Season” also had a brief early run in select Regal Cinemas from July 13 through July 16 as part of the chain’s Summer Movie Express, paired with screenings of “Scoob!”

The short first premiered at the Annecy International Animation Festival on June 22, where it served as the centerpiece of Warner Bros. Pictures Animation president and CCO Bill Damaschke’s presentation introducing what he described as a new chapter for the studio. Directed by Todd Wilderman and Hamish Grieve, with a script from Wilderman, Grieve and Jenny Jaffe, “Daffy Season” leans directly into the character’s history. The premise draws from Chuck Jones’ 1951 short “Rabbit Fire” and the “duck season, rabbit season” trilogy that followed, only this time Daffy steps into the woods ready for his annual battle with Elmer Fudd and finds nobody there. Elmer, along with the rest of the Looney Tunes gang, has become completely absorbed in soccer amid a World Cup fever sweeping through the forest, and Daffy’s slow unraveling over being ignored eventually spirals into a surreal, horror tinged sequence before the whole cast winds up on an actual soccer field. Even Speedy Gonzalez gets pulled into the chaos, apparently lured in by the promise of guacamole.

The animation comes from DNEG, blending classic hand drawn touches, like smeared motion and extra limbs during peak chaos, into a modern computer animated frame, with the short’s visual style and sound mix growing bolder and more expressive as the story escalates. Damaschke has been vocal about wanting Daffy and the rest of the Looney Tunes cast to headline something again rather than sit in a supporting or celebrity cameo role, and choosing Daffy as the lead over other characters considered in early drafts, including Porky Pig, reportedly came down to his instinctive contrarian streak fitting the premise best.

For longtime fans, “Daffy Season” is being framed as a genuine callback to the Termite Terrace era of Looney Tunes, right down to the filmmakers reportedly visiting the site of the original animation building on the Warner Bros. lot for inspiration. With “The Cat in the Hat” marking the studio’s first animated feature release and Bill Hader voicing the title character, November 6 is shaping up to be a significant day for Warner Bros. Pictures Animation, with Daffy Duck leading the charge before the main feature even begins.