Image Credit: Disney
Forgot password
Enter the email address you used when you joined and we'll send you instructions to reset your password.
If you used Apple or Google to create your account, this process will create a password for your existing account.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Reset password instructions sent. If you have an account with us, you will receive an email within a few minutes.
Something went wrong. Try again or contact support if the problem persists.
winnie the pooh blood and honey
Image via via Altitude Film Distribution

‘If they wanted to, Disney could have shut us down’: Unfortunately, one of the worst movies of all-time was still granted permission to exist

And now we're getting a sequel. Thanks for nothing, Disney.

For a company that’s notoriously precious over how its IP gets used, Disney failed to do the world a favor and prevent Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey from existing, a decision that’s got to be up there as one of the worst calls in the history of modern cinema.

Recommended Videos

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO “THEY SAID WHAT!?” OUR NEWSLETTER ON THE DUMBEST HEADLINES IN POLITICS THIS WEEK

While writer and director Rhys Frake-Waterfield’s take on the residents of Hundred Acre Wood was well within its rights to use the characters it did in the way that it used them, the filmmaker admitted to IndieWire that he was always operating under the potential shadow of looming legal infringement.

“I was purposely very, very conservative with how much I had [Pooh and Piglet] speak, mostly because it was kind of concerned from a legal point of view of what I could get myself into. The more I’ve got them speaking, the more likely I can get into legal trouble. So I kind of limited myself there.”

winnie the pooh blood and honey
Image via Altitude Film Distribution

After inexplicably earning its budget back 50 times over at the box office despite being named by both Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb as among the most egregious affronts to celluloid that have ever existed, the sequel is on its way to a Valentine’s Day release next year.

And yet, even though Disney technically couldn’t have prevented Blood and Honey, Frake-Waterfield did acknowledge that if the Mouse House had designs on shutting it down out of nothing but spite, there wasn’t a thing he could have done about it.

“If they wanted to, Disney could have shut us down. Like, the company is so f*cking massive, they could have just gone — even if they had no grounds for it — ‘Well, we’re suing you and we’re just gonna throw the book at you. And we’re just gonna tie you up legally. And this will not go out there.’ So there was that, that risk that even if we did everything 100 percent, they could just intentionally be litigators. But they didn’t.”

Based on the overwhelmingly negative response to Blood and Honey from everyone bar its most ardent supporters, you can’t help but feel Disney missed a trick by saving the world from such an abomination, and now we’ve got a franchise to deal with as a result. Thanks a bunch.


We Got This Covered is supported by our audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a small affiliate commission. Learn more about our Affiliate Policy
Author
Image of Scott Campbell
Scott Campbell
News, reviews, interviews. To paraphrase Keanu Reeves; Words. Lots of words.