For the sequel to the surprise hit “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey,” we get a first look at the new Winnie the Pooh, and he looks utterly deranged.
Director Rhys Frake-Waterfield has already given us a glimpse of the upcoming horror slasher, “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2.” However, only a shadow of the Winnie the Pooh transformed into a man-eating monster was visible. Now, the resourceful filmmaker, during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, has provided an image where the new design of the horror bear can finally be properly appreciated.
https://twitter.com/THR/status/1720452080421466431
Oh dear! I believe I’ve been caught by surprise. Alright, one thing we have to acknowledge about director and screenwriter Frake Waterfield and his producer colleague Scott Jeffrey is that you can definitely see the higher budget in this new, much more animal-like design for the horror sequel. However, if you didn’t know any better, you might mistake the creature in the picture for a rabbit post-World War III or a relative of the Night Hob from Wolfgang Petersen’s adaptation of Michael Ende’s “The NeverEnding Story.”
Sure, Winnie the Pooh now has (again) fur, and being left alone and disappointed by a beloved figure can take a toll on one, especially in conjunction with the dietary shift from honey to protein-rich human flesh. But now, he bears no resemblance to the bear adored by fans worldwide since author A.A. Milne introduced him in 1926 in “Winnie-the-Pooh.” True, he gained popularity and his iconic appearance through Disney’s version, which this new design for “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2” clearly departs from, possibly due to legal considerations. Furthermore, he now fits better into the horror setting.
However, it can’t be denied that his originally somewhat cheap-looking and rather cute design played a significant role in the appeal of this horror variant. How this will be compensated for to differentiate the film from conventional genre entries should be interesting. Especially since the element of surprise is no longer present. In the trailer for the surprise hit, which grossed nearly $6 million worldwide with a budget of under $100,000, you can see the original appearance once more.
“Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2” has a significantly higher budget Even though almost no one had heard of Rhys Frake-Waterfield before “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey,” the British filmmaker is no newcomer: Together with Scott Jeffrey, he has been churning out one film after another since 2021. Their production company, Jagged Edge Productions, has produced over 20 productions in three years, all low-budget with costs between $20,000 and $30,000 per film. Ratatatata! With this unique take on Milne’s legacy, the duo struck gold, and now they plan to fully exploit it with an entire universe featuring other characters like Bambi and Peter Pan, all of which are in the public domain, allowing them to do practically anything they wish with them. For Winnie the Pooh’s new costume alone, a significantly higher budget was allocated, as stated by Frake-Waterfield:
“Just the prosthetics for the creatures cost well over $20,000, so that’s a huge difference. But it’s worth the investment because it’s your creature. That’s what people watch horror for. In terms of costs, I would say it’s probably 10 to 15 times the original.”
Furthermore, at least according to the director, the sequel is better in every way than the original.
“We now know the audience it reaches, whereas we had no real idea for the first film. We certainly didn’t expect to reach as many people as we did. This time, we approached it with the knowledge that it will happen, so we can spend much more time on it. I haven’t worked on anything else this year. So in every aspect, we’ve improved compared to the first part.”
These are certainly significant promises for the fan base out there. By the way, you can stream “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” on Paramount+.
