The public domain horror universe has reached its Avengers moment
The creators of low-budget slasher Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey are bringing your favorite childhood characters together in the most violent way possible
Aux News Winnie the Pooh
With Marvel on the decline, it comes as no surprise that something new is rising up to claim its throne—or at least trying to. But we’re also feeling pretty confident when we say that absolutely no one was asking for that thing to be the Twisted Childhood Universe, a.k.a. the public domain, I.P. driven gore-fest from the brilliant, or… something minds behind Razzie-sweeper Winnie The Pooh: Blood And Honey and its upcoming sequel, Winnie The Pooh: Blood And Honey 2.
If you’re one of the freaks who gave the $50,000 “what if Winnie the Pooh stabbed people” slasher a whopping $5 million at the box office, you legally owe the rest of us an apology. Last February, production studios Jagged Edge and ITN announced that they would be spinning the hundred-acre horror into an entire dark fairy tale universe, with slated titles like Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare, Pinocchio Unstrung, and Bambi: The Reckoning.
While all of those films are still to come in 2024, today the studios revealed that they were already plotting the inevitable team-up film: a blood-splattered nightmare called Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble. Yes, the MCU allusion is intentional. “As horror fans, we would love an Avengers that is all villains,” Jagged Edge boss Scott Chambers told Variety. “It’d have Freddy Krueger, Jason, Halloween, Scream, all of those. Obviously that will never happen, but we can make it happen in our own little way, and that’s where this film has been born.”
As of this announcement, Tinkerbell, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, Tigger, Piglet, The Mad Hatter and Sleeping Beauty will be joining Pooh and Bambi for their killing spree, which will see the “monsters” band together to eliminate any survivors from their previous films. But if that sounds a little too cutesy, “it’s a small world after all” for you, never fear! There will also apparently be dissension in the ranks, leading to “carnage within the group” and “epic sequences of monster vs. monster.” Phew!
Poohniverse will be directed by Rhys Jake-Waterfield, who also helmed Blood And Honeys 1 and 2. (“It’s really exciting,” he said.) The film will be released sometime in 2025. In the meantime, you can tide yourself over with Blood And Honey 2, out in theaters March 26.
34 Comments
If you’re one of the freaks who gave the $50,000 “what if Winnie the Pooh stabbed people” slasher a whopping $5 million at the box office, you legally owe the rest of us an apology. This coming from the website whose constant, breathless coverage of these movies is 100% of my exposure to them.
Yep, ignoring them is a very real option.
Yep.
“Doesn’t this just PISS YOU OFF?”Nah, not really. Sorry…?
Yeah I’m a grown ass adult I really don’t care about a cartoon character that I maybe liked for 2 years when I was 4.
After the fortunately short-lived craze for crap like Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, there’s very little in pop culture that can actively piss me off anymore.
Never did I think I’d mourn Disney properties entering public domain
You had to know it would be all horror and porn.
Well I knew those would happen, but I (foolishly) kind of figured that would be the minority! I haven’t heard of anybody trying to utilize these characters for anything remotely creative (beyond porn/gore) since getting out from under the Mouse’s thumb.
That will probably come, but horror is cheap and quick to produce plus the juxtaposition of beloved childhood characters with bloody carnage is too easy to pass up. Only thing cheaper and quicker is porn.
Some of the best porn.
That was supposed to include an image of Alan Moore’s Lost Girls.
It’s not the “Disney properties” that are the root. It’s that *Milne’s books* entered the public domain, and these companies have now realized they could simply mine all the same other public domain stories that Disney already did long ago (or whose source material is now p.d.) – and then even milk that Disney *association* a little further. It’s a niche field but lucrative enough that it’s a bold initiative but also likely a wise investment. (Please note that I am not commenting on the films’ quality, which I imagine will continue to be excremental. The audience owns the blame.)
Fables already did this, and it was great. These Blood and Honey assholes need to be stopped before they can do more harm**aka, stop buying tickets for this garbage.
IDK… it made $5 million. Assuming that a ticket costs about $10 on average for a nice number thats… 500,000 people who paid to see this movie. Also assuming that no one went to see it again (and who knows! there are superfans of everything), that’s a pretty small number of people who saw it. 500K is a bit less than half the population of Delaware. It got a sequel because it was dirt cheap to make and had a massive return. I would absolutely love to tuen $50K into $5 million.My point is… this was not some big cultural thing. There are not millions of people desperate to build out this universe. This is a pretty small thing that randomly gets coverage because of the idea itself and that’s it. It’s pretty easy to ignore.
Part of me wonders if these guys are secretly working for Disney, making this crap in an attempt to drum up support for extending corporate copyright again.
But then part of me remembers that I’ve known edgelord douchebags like them my entire life, so it’s completely realistic that they had this stupid idea entirely on their own, & Occam’s Razor says I should go with that explanation because it’s simpler.
I think I could get behind Bambi: The Reckoning if it was animated in the style of the original. Peter Pan I’m pretty sure is a dude who climbs in windows at night and abducts children so that also kinda tracks. I’m sure they’ll both be terrible though.
Wait until you see what the Tooth Fairy makes with all those teeth.
A big pile usually
DO JOSEPHINE MUTZENBACHER, DISNEY, YOU COWARDS.
In the book, Peter also murdered the Lost Boys when they got too old. He was bringing kids to Neverland to replenish the ranks.
I watched this movie on peacock (I think it was peacock) and boy it was shit. Like it could have been a decent concept but it was so awful, worst movie I saw from 2023. Now they are making 6 more? Wonderful, way to make this a Universe and we still haven’t gotten the Dark Universe as of yet.
“we would love an Avengers that is all villains”You’ve had two Suicide Squads already.Also, Freddy vs Jason happened.
Cynical clickbait. Fuck you.Yes, I clicked on it so I could say this.
I am constantly reminded that Poo is just another trem for Shit in my part of the world , so a Shitverse for these guys makes sense.
I mean, it sounds like the kind of trash I ignore every time I ramble through several pages of new releases. That you feel obliged to report on it and not numerous good films, well, says a lot about you.Though the SXSW reviews have been a nice touch lately.
Somehow the thing that offends me most is the lack of imagination with the title. A two-part title with a colon between obliges them to put the “2″ before the colon and come up with a new subtitle, not just stick a “2″ onto the very end.
Come on, people! Pinocchio: Strung Out was right there.
Let the people have their fun.
Ive never not wanted to engage wth a cinematic universe more
Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare
You mean The Child Thief by Brom?
Pooniverse sounds like a better idea
Clearly they are planning a reveal of Steamboat Willie as either the super-villain/hero that unites them, and I grudgingly respect the discipline with which they are avoiding this spoiler.