Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey continues to unveil more of its warped Hundred Acre Wood lore in shocking new trailers, with several classic characters set to appear in the upcoming storybook slasher. With the rights to the Winnie-The-Pooh property becoming public domain in January, the film can legally adapt A. A. Milne's original characters. As a result, it's unclear which of Milne's fictional woodland creatures will feature in Bloody and Honey.
Along with hundreds of other works, Winnie-The-Pooh became public domain on January 1, 2022. The director of Blood and Honey, Rhys Frake-Waterfield, set to work creating a horrific adaptation of the childhood tale written by A. A. Milne. Milne was inspired by his son's teddy bear when he wrote a story about cutesy woodland creatures that could interact with the young and imaginative Christopher Robin. Disney no longer possesses exclusive rights to Winnie-The-Pooh but the company's version of Pooh, heavily inspired by Milne's book, is still protected under copyright law. Frake-Waterfield's take on the iconic tale will shine a new light on Winnie and his friend Piglet by making them the antagonists in Christopher's story.
Disney has kept Winnie-The-Pooh under lock and key for decades, never deviating from a family-friendly depiction of the infamous talking teddy bear. The marketing for Frake-Waterfield's brutal adaptation of Milne's tale has been exceptionally original for this reason. Many moviegoers will rush to watch it to see a darker take on the normally wholesome Pooh and his various woodland friends. In the trailers for Blood and Honey so far, Pooh, Piglet, and Christopher Robin are the only characters from the original story who appear. Available footage of the morbidly redressed Hundred Acre Wood implies there may at least be references to other characters, even if they do not appear, such as the stuffed donkey Eeyore.
Winnie The Pooh
The central figure of Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey is of course Winnie the Pooh himself. He appears in several shots of the trailer, both reminiscent of his original character and yet fully redesigned for a modernized horror flick. He is the size of a fully grown man, unlike the smaller teddy bear version Disney aficionados have come to recognize. Pooh's yellow body and red clothing are used in Blood and Honey but are tweaked. According to Rhys Frake-Waterfield, the red color scheme in Pooh's clothes became a point of contention when trying to evade copyright strikes. Frake-Waterfield had to dress Pooh in a lumberjack outfit to avoid copying Disney's plain red shirt getup. In an interview, the director explains how they evaded copyright; "we did as much as we could to make sure [the film] was only based on the 1926 version of it” (via Variety). Red is still incorporated in the outfit, hearkening back to the more well-known and pure version of Pooh to make this twisted slasher feel even more disturbing.
Piglet
The pink critter Piglet majorly depicted as an anxious but loyal friend in Disney's many adaptations is confirmed to appear in Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey. Unlike Pooh, Piglet's design in the upcoming slasher is practically unrecognizable. Pooh has kept his distinguished round ears and yellow body while Piglet has taken on the appearance of a warthog. The horrific mask in the film contains tusks and an overlarge snout. In Frake-Waterfield's Variety interview, he mentions that the man-sized pig is dressed in black for the same reason Pooh is dressed as a lumberjack. Copyright prevents the filmmakers from dressing him similarly to his Disney counterpart, otherwise he could have been shown wearing distinctive scarves. Blood and Honey's Piglet is also not bright pink, but this is a grounded choice that makes his character more off-putting as a slasher.
Christopher Robin
Christopher Robin is confirmed to be a main character in Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey, played by English actor Nikolai Leon. The official trailer reveals Christopher's journey back to the Hundred Acre Wood to reunite with his childhood friends Piglet and Pooh. He regularly visited them throughout his youth, but once Christopher left for college, the woodland creatures were left without a food source. Blood and Honey follows the aftermath of Christopher's abandonment and how it has turned the once friendly animals into bloodthirsty killers. In this slasher, Christopher Robin is undeniably the closest in character to his Milne counterpart. He remains the protagonist and trustfully believes Pooh and Piglet are still his friends.
Will Other Winnie The Pooh Characters Appear In Blood & Honey?
The Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey trailer has hinted there might be appearances from the other Hundred Acre Wood residents, even if they are just cameos. When Christopher Robin returns from college, he sees a sign in the woods that reads Eeyore R.I.P. Eeyore being killed and eaten shows that Piglet and Pooh have been starving. Beyond a potential flashback or reference, however, the remaining Winnie-The-Pooh characters will not feature prominently in this slasher. According to Variety, Tigger and several of the other iconic talking animals are not characters in the film because Disney holds separate copyright restrictions over them. That does not mean that they will be altogether absent from the story, though.
The action-packed slasher will be filled with gruesome moments to distract from the absence of the other Hundred Acre Wood animals. This rendition of A. A. Milne's book could inspire creators to continue reinventing these characters in adaptations unique to Disney's faithful ones. The only characters of Milne's in Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey confirmed to be shown onscreen are Pooh, Piglet, and Christopher Robin.
