When you think of Winnie the Pooh you immediately go to that beloved, cuddly Disney character voiced by Jim Cummings who gets stuck a lot, loves to eat honey and play with Christopher Robin and his friends in Hundred Acre Wood. However, an upcoming independent horror looks set to change that with a twisted horror version of the story- Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey.
Turns out the original Winnie the Pooh story has recently fallen into public domain in regards to trademark and copyright issues, which in turn means that Disney don't have first rights anymore. Writer, director Rhys Frake-Waterfield decided to retell the famous Winnie the Pooh story as a horror film. Speaking with Variety earlier this year, Waterfield “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” will see Pooh and Piglet as “the main villains…going on a rampage” after being abandoned by a college-bound Christopher Robin.
“Christopher Robin is pulled away from them, and he’s not [given] them food, it’s made Pooh and Piglet’s life quite difficult. Because they’ve had to fend for themselves so much, they’ve essentially become feral. So they’ve gone back to their animal roots. They’re no longer tame: they’re like a vicious bear and pig who want to go around and try and find prey.”
Tigger and Eyore will not be appearing in the film due to copyright issues, and the fact that according to Wakefield a near starving Pooh and Piglet decided to eat Eyore some time before this film takes place. Whether or not this will ruffle many feathers at Disney remains to be seen, although Wakefield has “tried to be extremely careful.”
“We knew there was this line between that, and we knew what their copyright was and what they’ve done. So we did as much as we could to make sure [the film] was only based on the 1926 version of it.”
Hence why our beloved Poohbear has swapped that little red shirt for a lumberjack suit and Piglet is sporting an all black clad look.
“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.”
Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, from Jagged Edge Productions is set to release later this year and is set to be distributed by ITN Studios. Amber Doig-Thorne, Maria Taylor, and Danielle Scott all star in the film that “follows Pooh and Piglet as they go on a rampage after Christopher Robin abandons them.” You can check out more stills of the upcoming horror below.
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