The movie world could soon be getting a new cinematic universe to rival that of the MCU and MosterVerse, although on a significantly more cut-price level. And with a lot more gore.
Following the ongoing shock success of Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, the micro-budget British slasher that went viral last year and has already amassed a box office haul approaching $1 million in Mexico ahead of its global theatrical launch on Feb. 15, writer/director Rhys Frake-Waterfield says he’s planning to create an entire universe filled with bloodied X-rated adaptations of beloved childhood stories.
The filmmaker — who alongside producer Scott Jeffrey runs prolific low-budget horror banner Jagged Edge Productions — already revealed to The Hollywood Reporter last year that he was developing Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare, based on J.M. Barries’s book (but this time featuring a “heavily obese” Tinkerbell who’s “recovering from drugs”). Jeffrey later unveiled that he’d set his sights on the world’s most famous doe-eyed deer in Bambi: The Reckoning (telling the Dread Central website that his Bambi would be a “vicious killing machine”).
But with Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey‘s momentum gathering pace as it prepares for a full release by Fathom Events across 1,500 screens in the U.S. and numerous other international territories, and with a sequel already in development, Rhys Frake-Waterfield now tells THR that he’s planning on bringing all these once family-friendly characters — and more — into one unruly universe.
“The idea is that we’re going to try and imagine they’re all in the same world, so we can have crossovers,” he says. “People have been messaging saying they really want to see Bambi versus Pooh.”
Although Frake-Waterfield admits that the current crop of ideas — all available to merrily bludgeon thanks to the original books having entered the public domain — sounds like a “Disney alternative reality,” with the studio having successfully adapted so many of the stories for the screen, he says that’s not the intention.
“There are many, many, many other ideas out there which aren’t tied to Disney, loads of old fairytales and urban legends, concepts that are synonymous with your childhood, and they’re the ones which I want to build up into a twisted alternative reality.”