TL:DR: Disney still owns rights to Disney's version to Winnie the Pooh, but the Character itself is Public Domain.
See The Winnie The Pooh Horror Movie That Is Actually Happening
Someone is making a Winnie the Pooh horror flick -- no, we're not joking and we've got the photos to prove it.
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See The Winnie The Pooh Horror Movie That Is Actually Happening
By Michileen Martin | 7 seconds ago
3-4 minutes
So… did you know Winnie the Pooh is now in the public domain? Yeah. It is. And someone who has apparently stayed under all of our radars for a while now has taken advantage of that and made a horror movie based on the icon. We’re not joking, we’re not lying, and we have the photos to prove it. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, a horror film and what looks to be a slasher flick, is a real thing and it’s on the way.
As Dread Central and others have reported, Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey is an upcoming horror film and yes, it’s real. It’s got an IMDb page, production photos, the whole shebang. There are precious few details available about the flick, though it’s clearly an indie film and the photos make it appear it follows some very familiar horror tropes: young adults in a remote area, attacks coming when the victims are at their absolute sexiest, and the villains dressed like the stereotypes of rural folk. You can see the images below.
According to Dread Central, Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey will be a horror “retelling” of the story we’re all more familiar with. As you can see in third image, a slasher version of Winnie’s beloved Piglet will also be involved in the blood-honey-letting. With few details about the film available, we don’t know yet if there will also be villainous versions of Roo, Kanga, or Tigger. We don’t even want to imagine what a slasher version of Eeyore would be.
IMDb lists Rhys Frake-Waterfield as the director of the Winnie the Pooh horror flick, and while he has a social media presence, he’s devoted surprisingly little of it to promoting the upcoming film. His only direct references to Blood and Honey are in his Instagram stories. One of the videos includes the Winnie actor doing a number of dances in costume, including the Floss and the Robot.
It’s tempting to assume Frake-Waterfield has gone out of his way to keep the Winnie the Pooh horror movie under the radar in fear of the notoriously litigious Disney. As explained by Temple University, with Winnie the Pooh in the public domain, the character can be used by anyone, though Disney still owns their specific version of the character. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean Disney wouldn’t pursue legal action. We’re going to go out on a limb and guessing the media giant has more lawyers and resources at their command than the cast and crew of Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. If they felt they could prove too close a resemblance to their version of the overeating bear, they might take a shot. Long before Disney included Marvel under their banner, for example, they successfully forced the comic book company to alter Howard the Duck by threatening a lawsuit over alleged resemblances to Donald Duck.
