The other weekend Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey nabbed a dubious (if inevitable) honor: It scored big at the Golden Raspberry Awards. The headline-grabbing R-rated horror picture took home five Razzies, including Worst Picture, besting the likes of Exorcist: Believer and Shazam: Fury of the Gods. Has that deterred Blood and Honey’s makers? Of course not. Not only do they have a Tigger-centric sequel en route, but now they’re getting ambitious.
Per Variety, the makers of Blood and Honey have announced Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble, an Avengers-style mash-up, in which the murderous version of A.A. Milne’s characters will duke it out with other beloved Disney characters that have fallen into the public domain. Among them are Bambi, Tinkerbell, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, The Mad Hatter, and Sleeping Beauty, on top of the Pooh folks Tigger and Piglet.
Much as Marvel didn’t simply jump from the first Iron Man straight to Avengers, the Blood and Honey folks will first have to do some heavy-duty world-building:
Many of the characters set to appear in “Poohniverse” will first feature in standalone films coming this year and falling under Jagged Edge’s version of the MCU, the Twisted Childhood Universe. Among them are “Bambi: The Reckoning,” “Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare” and “Pinocchio Unstrung,” plus last year’s “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” and its sequel “Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2,” which is being released theatrically in the U.S. on March 26. The upcoming films will include various easter eggs linking them toward the upcoming horrifying crossover.
Will this ambition pay off? Will moviegoers, who turned Blood and Honey into a modest hit — $5 million to its $50,000 budget — turn out not only for a sequel but several franchise builders? Or will the trend of children’s characters milked for horror movie cash-ins get old real fast? (It better not; there are at least three Mickey Mouse gorefests en route.) One early sign of potential fatigue is if people turn out for Blood and Honey 2, set for release on March 26.
(Via Variety)