Earlier this year, author A.A. Milne’s original “Winnie-the-Pooh” stories entered the public domain – granting filmmakers the right to use the character.
Disney’s animated film franchise and version remains protected by copyright and the studio retains exclusive use of their interpretations of Pooh Bear and his friends. However as the studio no longer has exclusive rights to Milne’s work, others can use the characters from the books – and now one has.
Variety has published the first photos from “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey,” filmmaker Rhys Frake-Waterfield’s indie horror slasher film starring Amber Doig-Thorne, Maria Taylor and Danielle Scott.
The project is dubbed a “grisly retelling of the Winnie the Pooh ‘legend'”. Waterfield wrote and co-produced the film that sees Pooh and Piglet as the main villains, the pair having gone feral and going on a rampage after being abandoned by a college-bound Christopher Robin.
The film was shot in ten days in England, not far from Ashdown Forest which inspired Milne’s imaginary Hundred Acre Wood. Craig David Dowsett takes on the role of ‘Winnie’ in the film.
The filmmakers said they were extremely careful in regards to what they could use, only basing it on the 1926 book version of Pooh – so no red t-shirt, and no characters like Tigger who is still under copyright. The film does reportedly feature a tombstone for Eeyore – the donkey having been eaten by a starving Pooh and Piglet in the film.
Waterfield tells the outlet: “No one is going to mistake this [for Disney]. When you see the cover for this and you see the trailers and the stills and all that, there’s no way anyone is going to think this is a child’s version of it. Like, no one who looks at this thinks this is a Disney version. It’s very, very, very different.”
Scott Jeffrey co-produces for Jagged Edge Productions and the project is currently in post-production with ITN Studios to distribute.
First look at ‘WINNIE THE POOH: BLOOD AND HONEY’, a horror retelling of Winnie The Pooh. pic.twitter.com/VfBF6MTpOc
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) May 26, 2022
