Home Movie News ‘Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey’ Director Wants to Make Teletubbies & Ninja Turtles Horror Movies

Only if copyright laws weren’t an issue, of course.

Due to US copyright law, director Rhys Frake-Waterfield was able to put a horror spin on A. A. Milne’s first collection of stories about Winnie-the-Pooh, which was published in 1926.

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey covers what happens when Christopher Robin (Nikolai Leon) abandons Pooh, Piglet, and his other Hundred Acre Wood pals causing them to become feral. When Christopher returns to the region, he’s horrified to see what’s become of his childhood friends. Meanwhile, nearby, Maria (Maria Taylor), Jess (Natasha Rose Mills), Alice (Amber Doig-Thorne), Zoe (Danielle Ronald), and Lara (Natasha Tosini) are starting to enjoy a weekend getaway at a remote cabin. However, little do they know, a bloodthirsty Pooh and Piglet are right nearby.
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Winnie the Pooh isn’t the only character getting the horror treatment from Frake-Waterfield and the team over at Jagged Edge Productions. They’re also working on movies about Bambi and Peter Pan due to Bambi, a Life in the Woods, Little White Bird, and Peter and Wendy all being in the public domain. If this weren’t the case, horror spins on these characters would be off the table.

While discussing how one can and cannot use works in the public domain, I posed an additional question to Frake-Waterfield just for fun. If copyright laws weren’t an issue, what existing IP would he most like to bring to screen horror-style. Here’s what Frake-Waterfield went with:

“I’ve really been excited by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lately because I think the story has a very kind of horrifying undertone anyway because it’s these half-human, half-turtles who live in the sewer who have a rat king who they follow, and then they come out of the sewer with weapons. [Laughs] It all just starts to link together to me. So I’d love to do that. I’d love to have them like down an alleyway cutting people up, feeding them to their rat king on pizza or something. I hope I can get the copyrights to that, but I don’t know if I can.”

Frake-Waterfield didn’t stop there. He also suggested infusing some carnage into a beloved children’s television series; “I want to do Teletubbies, too!”

Given those copyright laws, Teletubbies and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are untouchable for Frake-Waterfield and co., but the ideas are still mighty amusing to consider.

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey is in theaters nationwide now. You can check out my full conversation with Frake-Waterfield below: