2025 ‘Poohniverse’ Horror Movie Featuring Disney Characters Goes Public

Media

from Shannon Thaler

Winnie the Pooh is slated to star in a horror film next year alongside a host of other iconic Disney characters whose copyrights have expired – including Bambi, Pinocchio, Peter Pan and Sleeping Beauty.

British production company and prolific horror filmmakers Jagged Edge Productions have teamed up with independent film distributor ITN Studios to produce Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey in 2023.

Although Disney still owns the rights to the animated versions of Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne’s original book story about the honey-loving teddy bear went into the public domain on January 1, 2022.

Since then, the characters in Milne’s 200-page book, published in 1926, have been free to use legally.

The slasher film about the original good-natured Pooh with yellow fur made headlines at the time for costing under $50,000 to make — then went on to earn an impressive $5.2 million at the box office, according to Variety.

On the back of that success, the same two London-based horror collaborators are set to release Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble in a year’s time featuring a murderous version of the beloved Pooh bear.

The upcoming film was born out of Jagged Edge boss Scott Chambers’ desire to see “Avengers who are just villains,” according to Variety.

“There will be Freddy Krueger, Jason, Halloween, Scream, all of those. Obviously, that’s never going to happen, but we can do it in our own little way, and that’s where this movie was born,” Chambers told the publication.

Other characters slated to appear in the “Poohniverse” will first star in standalone films that will be released in 2024 as part of Jagged Edge’s version of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which she calls the Twisted Childhood Universe.

Among the films in this collection are: “Bambi: The Reckoning”, “Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare” and “Pinocchio Unstrung”, plus “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” and its sequel, which was released just last month.

For reference, Bambi’s copyright expired in January 2022, while Peter Pan and Pinocchio’s Cabin went public earlier this year.

While other details of the upcoming film’s plot are unclear, the film’s poster features a murderous Pooh swinging a bear trap on a chain while riding a bloodthirsty Bambi, Variety previously reported.

Representatives for Jagged Edge and ITN Studios did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.

Many beloved animated characters began entering the public domain — becoming available for use without license or payment — in 2019, after a two-decade drought caused by Congress’ 1998 copyright extension, according to Fortune.

However, the public didn’t seem to notice until 2022, when “Winnie the Pooh” became free to use after the 95-year copyright period.

The 1928 version of Mickey Mouse, for example, entered the public domain in January 2024, even though Disney tried to retain copyright on the iconic character that started it all.

Accordingly, Disney lost the copyright to Steamboat Willie—the original version of Mickey that appeared in an animated short of the same name—as well as the earliest version of Mininie that also appeared in the cartoon.

Over the decades, Disney has made several legal maneuvers to try to expand copyright.

In 1998, she lobbied for the Copyright Extension Act, which added 20 years, adding up to 95 years.

This act would eventually be called the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act” because it showed Disney’s influence in Congress.