‘Winnie The Pooh: Blood And Honey’ Shows The Power Of The Public Domain

The first trailer for Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey has dropped, and the cuddly bear has grown rabid, thirsty for revenge after being abandoned by Christopher Robin.

The trailer shows a pretty standard slasher flick, a group of teenage girls terrorized by two axe-wielding murderers, who appear to be wearing these silicone masks. What’s interesting is that these two sickos are depicted as the original Pooh and Piglet, having grown old and unhinged over the years.

This is only possible because A.A. Milne’s original Winnie-the-Pooh book has finally lapsed into the public domain, being one of the most culturally relevant stories to have broken free of copyright recently. Disney has retained control over the franchise for several decades, ever since adapting the original books into animated films.

But these days, the Hundred Acre Wood has been relatively quiet, as the most recent Winnie the Pooh animated movie was released in 2011, and the live-action Christopher Robin released in 2018; however, Disney still releases a steady stream of shows, books and merchandise featuring Pooh and friends.

Now, Milne’s first book could potentially be adapted into a new animation to rival Disney’s iconic films, or twisted into a blood-spattered slasher, as is the case with Blood and Honey.

But there are still limitations – Milne wrote several sequels to his original story, and those books haven’t yet entered the public domain; hence, Tigger, who was introduced in the second book, is still Disney’s toy. Any new Winnie the Pooh adaption would have to stick to the original book, rather than Disney’s versions of the characters, which remain tightly bound by copyright law.

Disney actually did a great job adapting the books – the animated movies very much retain the tone of the original stories, and the voice actors were perfectly cast. Although, over time the character has been “Flanderized” somewhat – the books depict a thoughtful and creative bear, with more on his mind than honey (there’s also a Soviet animation of Winnie the Pooh that is worth watching, as the art style is quite different).

Now that the first book is completely open to adaptation, it will be interesting to see where Winnie the Pooh goes from here; those original books are surprisingly funny, insightful and poignant (despite their age, my kids loved them).

It’s always fascinating to see how an iconic character can mutate over time, filtered through different interpretations; we see it online all the time, despite copyright restrictions.

Blood and Honey’s subversive lurch into gore-spattered horror is actually a very common direction for children’s characters; YouTube is filled with cuddly cartoons twisted into ravenous monstrosities. Even a character as one-dimensional as Garfield ballooned into a terrifying Lovecraftian entity, over time.

Blood and Honey is surely only the beginning – Winnie the Pooh is about to be reborn, again and again.