Childhood, ruined: The upcoming horror film makes use of recently lapsed copyrights covering the original Winnie the Pooh books
(Picture: Jagged Edge Productions and ITN Studios)It sent the internet into a frenzy when production stills were released. Now, audiences finally have the chance to find out more about the ominously titled upcoming film Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, as the trailer has finally dropped.
In it, we see Christopher Robin all grown up, taking his girlfriend to 100 Acre Wood years after his childhood.
“The beloved childhood characters have been abandoned by Christopher Robin,” the trailer tells us, “and have turned wild.”
We then see Winnie the Pooh (or at least, a man wearing a Winnie the Pooh costume) emerge from the shadows of the abandoned house and attack the unnamed girlfriend.
As it turns out, the chaos follows them outside 100 Acre Wood, as a group of four women are then attacked in a house (one gets ambushed in a hot tub, another gets killed by a hammer-wielding Piglet in a swimming pool) as Christopher Robin screams: “We used to be friends, why are you doing this?”
Basically, it all looks like complete carnage, and fans are excited to see it happen.
“Will it be awful? Probably,” one YouTube viewer wrote. “Is that going to stop me from seeing it with my buddies and enjoying every moment of the experience? No way.”
Another agreed, calling it “the weirdest but most unique twist on a horror movie ever”.
The trailer is age-restricted (which tells you all you need to know about how vicious the film is), but can be viewed on YouTube.
For those wondering why Disney is letting this happen: as the Winnie the Pooh books were first published in 1926, the 95-year copyright on the works expired on January 1, 2022.
AA Milne first created the character of Edward Bear in a 1924 poetry collection, which led to his debut book Winnie-the-Pooh being published two years later.
Illustrated by EH Shepard, the original version of Winnie does not include the iconic red shirt – that was added by Disney, making that version of Winnie still out of bounds.
However, anybody can now incorporate the "original iterations of Pooh" into "into any of your creative work”, according to the Centre for the Study of Public Domain.
There is a bright spot: the use of Tigger is still restricted by copyright laws… which is perhaps no bad thing.
Now, anybody can access (and use) AA Milne’s beloved works, and they are.
According to its IMDB page, the film stars Craig David Dowsett as Pooh, alongside Maria Taylor as Maria, Danielle Ronald as Zoe, May Kelly as Tina, Natasha Tosini as Lara and Chris Cordell as Piglet, while Rhys Frake-Waterfield directs. As yet, it has been given no concrete release date.
