Principal photography on Looney Tunes: Back In Action began August 12, 2002 at a large residence in Los Angeles’ Hancock Park neighborhood, which served as the domicile of legendary actor/international spy Damian Drake. Drake’s home is the setting for some memorable scenes, including Bugs performing a shot-by-shot reenactment of the shower scene from Psycho (to Kate’s annoyance), continuing a time-honored Looney Tunes tradition of paying homage to classics of the past.
From Hancock Park, the production relocated to the Warner Bros. studio lot in Burbank, where scenes were shot in the commissary, screening rooms, security stations, and jungle lagoon. The filmmakers wanted to evoke a glamorous bygone era of Hollywood, and extras can be seen strolling by dressed as gladiators, cowboys, giant ants and aliens. All the costumes were culled from Warner Bros. stock, kept over from the era of elaborate costume films.
The lobby of Warner Bros.’ Stephen J. Ross Theater served as the executive conference room where the brothers Warner meet with Vice President of Comedy Kate Houghton for Daffy’s ill-fated pitch meeting.
The studio commissary where Kate lunches with Bugs Bunny hosts a veritable who’s-who of Warner Bros. stars. Along with Wile E. Coyote and Michigan J. Frog, seated in the restaurant are members of the casts of ABC’s The Drew Carey Show and George Lopez, both of which film on the Warner’s lot. Also making cameos are Matthew Lillard, who stars in Warner’s 2002 hit Scooby-Doo and the upcoming Scooby Too, as well as his co-star Scooby-Doo and the original Shaggy himself.
The Batmobile that Daffy commandeers on his frenzied chase through the lot and inadvertently crashes into the iconic Warner Bros. water tower is the real thing – an authentic detail courtesy of the original Batman film. To create the cataclysmic collapse, the special effects crew rigged a façade of the lower portion of the tower that a stunt Batmobile crashes into. In postproduction, the façade was blended in with footage from the destruction of a quarter-scale model of the tower, a process overseen by visual effects supervisor Chris Watts and his crew.
In addition to starring as itself, the Warner Bros. lot was host to some of the film’s most elaborate sets. For two weeks Stage 21 was transformed into Yosemite Sam’s Wooden Nickel Casino, a rootin’-tootin’ Wild West-themed Las Vegas extravaganza replete with cowgirls, horses and brawling cowboys, fabricated by production designer Bill Brzeski and his talented team of art directors and set decorators. The Wooden Nickel is owned by the insidious Acme Corporation and run by one of its closely placed operatives, the irascible loudmouthed gunslinger Yosemite Sam. Southern gentleman rooster Foghorn Leghorn works as a blackjack dealer at the casino.
The daunting job of creating the wardrobe for the hundreds of actors and performers patronizing the Wooden Nickel fell to costume designer Mary Vogt. "The movie is a family film so we couldn’t do Las Vegas the way it really is because it’s too risqué," Vogt says. "But we wanted the feeling of glamour, and really, the most glamorous time was the 1940s – the World War II pinup girls were really sexy and cute, but also really covered. Also, since it’s Yosemite Sam’s casino, it makes sense that you could combine turn of the century saloon girls with the World War II pinups for a really fun mix."
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