Jagged Edge Productions and ITN Studios have been making waves with a slew of films adapting beloved children’s characters into blood-thirsty slashers. The biggest of these titles is “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” which made $5.2 million, on a $50,000 budget. This success has led to these studios’ most ambitious project yet, “Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble,” which will be a crossover of all their villainous children’s characters.
“Poohniverse” will team up murderous versions of Winnie the Pooh, Bambi, Tinkerbell, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, Tigger, Piglet, The Mad Hatter, and Sleeping Beauty. Most of these characters also have upcoming stand-alone movies like “Bambi: The Reckoning,” “Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare,” “Pinocchio Unstrung,” and the sequel “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2.” Basically, take the formula we’ve seen over the past decade with comic-book films and apply it to twisted fairy tales.
“As horror fans, we would love an Avengers that is all villains,” Scott Chambers, founder/CEO of Jagged Edge, said. “It’d have Freddy Krueger, Jason, ‘Halloween,’ ‘Scream,’ all of those. Obviously that will never happen, but we can make it happen in our own little way, and that’s where this film has been born.”
Of course, these standalone films will also be littered with easter eggs for the upcoming crossover.
“We’ve got access to all these concepts so it’s like a self-contained bubble and we can do what we want with them,” says Rhys Frake-Waterfield, director of “Blood and Honey.” Frake-Waterfield is also directing the “Poohniverse” along with the upcoming “Blood and Honey 2.” “So yeah, it’s really exciting,” he adds.
This early into production, the plot line is pretty general. “Poohniverse” will see these beloved children’s characters turned monsters team up to take on the survivors from their previous films. But don’t think there will be harmony within this band of villains either. There will be “carnage within the group” and “epic sequences of monster vs. monster,” according to Chambers.
“Poohniverse” will have Chambers returning as Christopher Robin, Megan Plactio as Wendy Darling, Roxanne Mckee as Xana, and Lewis Santer as Tigger. It is expected to come out sometime in 2025.
“Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2” will be released in select theaters on March 26, 27, and 28. You can check Fathom Events to find a screening near you.
We’ll keep you posted on updates about “Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble,” as they become available.
