Didn’t get a chance to watch the seminal horror film Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey during its short theatrical run? You’re in luck. The unconventional film based on lovable childhood characters is coming back to theaters for one week only. The film has been a success so far, it’s made around $4 million on a budget of only $100,000.
The film ran in theaters on February 15 in limited release, but according to Collider, it will likely be released widely in theaters across the country. Also, ITN Studios has some spiffy murderous merchandise being released in tandem with the film. There are two T-shirts – one is the movie’s poster and the other is a very uncomfortable depiction of the main character’s (Pooh) face.
It’s safe to say that critics were not fans of the movie, as it has an impressive (for the wrong reason) score of 4 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience score is much higher at 50 percent. Rolling Stone Miles Klee said, “Blood and Honey is a hundred-acre wasteland, a witless gory bore, and in the end, you’re just depressed that anyone spent time working on it.”
Despite the reviews, the movie was financially viable and that’s all that really matters at the end of the day, even if nerdy critics bemoan its existence. Critics don’t make or break movies, as much as they like to think they do. The success of the movie means the sequel will have a much bigger budget, which isn’t a bad thing.
The reason the movie was made and not sued into oblivion is because Winnie The Pooh is now in the public domain, meaning there’s no longer a copyright and anyone can use the works and characters. Works enter the public domain for “life of the author plus 70 years,” according to Temple University Law Dean Donald P. Harris.
This means that literally anyone can make a Winnie The Pooh movie and it will be legal. Will it be good? That’s another issue entirely. Director Rhys Frake-Waterfield told MovieWeb said when he made the movie, he was forced to make some obvious adjustments, but that it’s “actually Winnie the Pooh and Piglet going around killing people.”
“I hate this word and I might not be able to say it — anthropomorphic. Basically hybrids. Half-bear, half-man, and half-pig, half-[man]. So that was a decision because I really wanted them to have the ability to hold weapons. So if I made Winnie the Pooh just a bear, he’s got paws. All he will do is go around swiping people and killing them, maybe bite them. But with hands it becomes so much more fun because he has weapons, he can drive a car, I can do all these really interesting things.”
The movie returns to theaters for one week on March 17.