The public domain is a funny thing. On the one hand, it means a writer’s creations can live on long after they pass, allowing fans to take those characters on new adventures. However, there are also no limits, meaning the trend of children’s stories turning into horror films will continue. The creators of Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey are banking on the film being such a success that they have already announced a sequel.
The film still has yet to be unleashed onto theaters, as it’s currently set for a wide release on Feb. 15. The creators aren’t waiting for those box office tallies, though, and put out a tweet already looking ahead towards the film’s franchise potential.
The film follows Winnie the Pooh and Piglet, who have been abandoned by Christopher Robin and left to starve. This neglect has turned the pair feral, with the first trailer revealing that they had eaten Eeyore before the film starts. Due to not being released into the public domain, Tigger won’t be mentioned or seen. That’s not to say the bouncing tiger couldn’t be in the sequel, as his copyright ends on Jan. 1, 2024.
Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey was first announced in May 2022 where its premise alone garnered tons of attention for being the first major public domain property utilized this way. The film was even shot in Ashdown Forest in English, the exact location that inspired A.A. Milne’s creation of the Hundred Acre Wood in the first place.
This isn’t the only property getting this treatment by writer/director Rhys Frake-Watefield, either. Other horror films, Peter Pan: Neverland Nightmare and Bambi: The Reckoning, are coming to continue mining the public domain for childhood-ruining cinema.
