The horror movie Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey might be shocking the internet, but the creators have already side-stepped a major problem that has repeatedly tripped up the proposed Five Nights at Freddy's movie adaptation. The iconic character Winnie the Pooh recently entered the public domain, and the movie industry wasted no time in capitalizing on this fact. Thus, Winnie the Pooh: Blood & Honey, a subversive slasher movie retelling of the iconic children’s book series, will soon be released.
Unlike the family-friendly Winnie the Pooh that audiences are used to, Winnie the Pooh: Blood & Honey will depict a bloodthirsty, feral version of the character. He will still be joined by Piglet, but the pair will do a lot more gory killing than mild-mannered picnicking in this version of A.A. Milne's original stories. As objectionable as this take on the material is, Winnie the Pooh: Blood & Honey should at least be commended for avoiding the biggest mistake made by fellow children’s horror adaptation Five Nights at Freddy's.
Per Winnie the Pooh: Blood & Honey’s director Rhys Frake-Waterfield (via Variety): "Because of all the press and stuff, we’re just going to start expediting the edit and getting it through post-production as fast as we can.” Another children’s horror adaptation, the repeatedly delayed then canceled Five Nights at Freddy's movie, has emphatically not taken this approach. Based on the popular horror video game about a parlor haunted by murderous animatronics, the adaptation was announced in 2015, delayed in 2017, scrapped in 2018, scrapped again in 2020, and left in development hell, thus losing out on the height of the franchise’s once-huge popularity.
The premise of an R-rated horror retelling of Winnie-the-Pooh has a limited shelf life. Unlike the Five Nights at Freddy game, which spawned a string of successful sequels, Winnie the Pooh: Blood & Honey doesn’t have much in the way of a proof of concept. The movie is relying largely on notoriety and a handful of promotional stills, meaning that the director’s decision to expedite the editing process to make the most of the pre-release hype is an understandable one. In contrast, the Five Nights at Freddy's movie does have the backing of Blumhouse studios, a large fanbase from the original games, and some impressively big creative names attached to the project.
However, both movies are horror projects that aim to shock audiences by turning a lovable icon of childhood innocence into a ruthless killing machine. While the Five Nights at Freddy's movie has been attached to names like Chris Columbus and Gil Kenan over the years, Winnie the Pooh: Blood & Honey has the advantage of being a finished product ready for distribution. Even if the Five Nights at Freddy's movie went into production immediately, the adaptation would still have missed the height of the franchise’s popularity by almost a decade. Hype dies down fast, something that the director of Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey wisely anticipated and the creators of Five Nights at Freddy’s movie adaptation learned the hard way.