After becoming a viral sensation, the horror film Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood And Honey got a theatrical release date of February 2023. The film was first announced last May, shortly after that AA Milne’s beloved Winnie the Pooh characters have entered the public domain. Hundred Acre Woods’ gory animal shoot caused a stir online when Jagged Edge Productions released stills from the upcoming film which showed a nightmarish bear cub and tusked piglet lurking above a potential victim . The August release of the first trailer for Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey only added to the hype online as it showed the two beloved characters embarking on their murderous rampage.
Directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield, Blood And Honey was previously confirmed to take place years after the events of the classic stories. In Frake-Waterfield’s account, Christopher Robin, Pooh’s human companion, stopped visiting the Hundred Acre Wood while growing up. Starving without their friend, Pooh and Piglet are forced to return to their animal roots to survive, going so far as to eat Eeyore. In Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey, adult Christopher Robin (Nikolai Leon) will return to his childhood home with his new bride, where his old friends are in the midst of a murderous rampage against nearby female students, and seek revenge.
It seems the online interest in this gory adaptation of Pooh has paid off for Frake-Waterfield and Jagged Edge Films. The Hollywood Reporter reported that Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey has secured a one-day theatrical release on February 13, 2023. Fathom Events, in charge of the film’s distribution, will host the events in US theaters, while that Altitude, Cineplex and Cinemex will handle releases in the UK, Canada and Mexico. The buzz surrounding Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey also seems to have motivated the filmmakers, as the report also indicates that Frake-Waterfield is developing both a sequel and a twisted Peter Pan horror film.
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 right now rests on the novelty of audiences seeing everyone’s favorite teddy bear transformed into a slasher villain. But novelty can’t replace quality, and as horribly humorous as the idea of Killer Pooh is, there’s no guarantee that Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey will be popular enough with horror audiences to merit a sequel. especially since it’s only getting a one-night release, a pattern that generally works more for re-releases than for new movies.
Still, horror films can be fertile ground for unexpected successes. Terrifier 2 swept the box office, against all odds for a low-budget sequel to an obscure slasher, and went from a week-long theatrical run to mass distribution, while Smile would dominate the box. -office for three weeks. Jagged Edge and Frake-Waterfield may have every right to be optimistic, and they can only hope that next February’s Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey will live up to audiences’ expectations for a bloody, subversive portrayal of the character. by AA Milne. With room for a sequel and a horror adaptation of Peter Pan, perhaps a cinematic crossover of everyone’s favorite childhood character wreaking havoc on screen lies in the future.
Source: THR