After becoming a viral sensation, the horror movie Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood And Honey has secured a February 2023 theatrical release date. The film was first announced last May, not long after the beloved A.A. Milne Winnie the Pooh characters entered public domain. The gory take on the Hundred Acre Woods animals caused an online stir when Jagged Edge Productions released stills from the upcoming movie that showed a nightmarish Pooh and a tusked Piglet lurking over a potential victim. The August release of the first Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey trailer only added to the online hype as it showed the two beloved characters embark on their murderous rampage.
Directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield, Blood And Honey was previously confirmed to be set years after the events of the classic stories. In Frake-Waterfield's retelling, Christopher Robin, Pooh's human companion, stopped visiting the Hundred Acre Wood as he grew up. Suffering from starvation without their friend, Pooh and Piglet are forced to return to their animalistic roots to survive, going so far as to eat Eeyore. In Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey, an adult Christopher Robin (Nikolai Leon) will return to his childhood home with his new wife, where his old friends are in the midst of a murderous rampage against nearby college girls, and will seek revenge.
It seems the online interest in this bloody Pooh adaptation has paid off for Frake-Waterfield and Jagged Edge Films. The Hollywood Reporter has brought word that Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey has secured a one-day theatrical release on February 13, 2023. Fathom Events, in charge of the movie's distribution, will host the events in U.S theaters, while Altitude, Cineplex, and Cinemex will handle the U.K, Canadian, and Mexican releases. The buzz around Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey seems to have motivated the filmmakers as well, as the report also indicates Frake-Waterfield is developing both a sequel and a twisted Peter Pan horror movie.
Will Blood & Honey Live Up To The Pre-Release Hype?
Planning a sequel before the release of Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey is a bold move for Frake-Waterfield. Much of the buzz for the horror movie at the moment hinges on the novelty of audiences seeing everyone's favorite teddy bear transformed into a slasher villain. But novelty can't replace quality, and as horrifyingly humorous as the idea of killer Pooh is, there's no guarantee that Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey will be enough of a hit with horror audiences to merit a sequel, especially given it's only getting a one-night release, a model that generally works for re-releases more so than brand-new films.
Still, horror movies can be fertile ground for unexpected success stories. Terrifier 2 swept the box office, against all expectations for a low-budget sequel to an obscure slasher, and went from a one-week theater run to wide-release distribution, while Smile would dominate the box office over three weeks. Perhaps Jagged Edge and Frake-Waterfield have every right to be optimistic, and they can only hope next February's Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey will meet audience's expectations for a gory, subversive portrayal of the A.A. Milne character. With room for a sequel and a Peter Pan horror adaptation, perhaps a cinematic crossover of everyone's favorite childhood character wreaking havoc on screen lies in the future.
Source: THR