You know him as a cute, cuddly bear, however Winnie the Pooh is about to obtain a terrifying makeover because the knife-wielding villain of a blood-drenched new slasher movie — no joke.
Pooh’s stunning reinvention — which hits U.S. theaters on Wednesday and has already provoked dying threats from enraged followers — might break field workplace information and check the boundaries of mental property legislation.
“Look, this is mental,” mentioned Rhys Frake-Waterfield, the 31-year-old director of “Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey.”
“I’ve had petitions to stop it. I’ve had death threats. I’ve had people saying they called the police,” he advised AFP.
While Pooh, Piglet and Eeyore’s family-friendly big-screen adventures have been licensed to Disney for many years, the copyright on the primary A.A. Milne books lately expired — and Frake-Waterfield’s tiny British indie studio pounced on the chance.
The first photographs of “Blood and Honey,” through which a sinister, human-sized Pooh and Piglet hovered menacingly behind a younger lady stress-free in a sizzling tub, rapidly went viral final 12 months.
Now the live-action movie — made on a shoestring finances of lower than $250,000 — is ready for a serious international theatrical launch.
It is already out in Mexico, the place it has made practically $1 million in two weeks, and a few business analysts are tipping it to grow to be one of the vital worthwhile movies of all time.
Frake-Waterfield initially hoped his movie “might do a mini theatrical run in certain areas.”
He now believes it might obtain the very best “budget-to-box office ratio” since “Paranormal Activity,” the $15,000 movie that launched a close to $1 billion franchise over a decade in the past.
“I really believed in the idea. Other people didn’t… and now it’s doing all right,” he joked.
Under U.S. legislation, copyrights expire 95 years after a piece is first printed. The first “Winnie-the-Pooh” e-book got here out in 1926.
However, there are caveats, particularly when a personality evolves over time.
Distinctive traits that have been added to Pooh in later books or Disney movies, resembling his crimson shirt or fondness for enjoying the sport Poohsticks, haven’t but entered the general public area.
Similarly, Pooh’s good friend Tigger didn’t seem till later books, and so couldn’t seem in “Blood and Honey.”
And then there may be the problem of trademark. Copyrights forestall the unlicensed copying of the artistic work itself, for instance books, movies and characters. They expire after a set time.
Trademarks guard the supply of a piece, stopping anybody else from making a product that might mislead customers into pondering it got here from the unique writer. They could be renewed indefinitely.
“You can’t suggest that somehow it’s sponsored by or affiliated or associated with Disney in any way, because Disney still does have robust trademark protection,” mentioned copyright lawyer Aaron J Moss.
In this occasion, the absurdity of creating a Pooh horror film helps the movie’s producers.
“Simply because it is so un-family friendly, and isn’t anything that (viewers) would expect Disney to have anything to do with, that would make any potential trademark claim much more difficult to assert,” he mentioned.
Frake-Waterfield mentioned there was by no means any need to skirt as near Disney’s Pooh as legally attainable.
“It’s literally the opposite. I want to go as far away from them as possible,” he mentioned. “I want Winnie the Pooh to be big and menacing and scary and intimidating and horrifying. I don’t want him to be small and cuddly and cute.”
In the movie, Pooh and Piglet have been left infuriated, deserted and feral by the departure of Christopher Robin — now a younger grownup — and go on a murderous rampage.
An AFP reporter at a screening in Mexico City final week mentioned many viewers members gave the impression to be leaving the theater dissatisfied, with Jonathan Ortiz, 32, describing the movie as “very bad.”
But neither the plot nor essential response are prone to matter a lot.
Hype across the film is so substantial that Frake-Waterfield is already getting ready a sequel — in addition to horror films based mostly on “Bambi” and “Peter Pan” books.
“One person literally yesterday was like, ‘Do you want a million to make a film? Just tell me the concept and we will just go ahead with it,'” he mentioned. “That’s really hard to get. It’s hard to get funding for any film, but people are starting to really try and engage.”
© 2023 AFP