Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 image offers preview of Pooh’s new design

Made on a budget of less than $100,000, director Rhys Frake-Waterfield’s movie Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey (watch it HERE) earned more than $6 million during its global release earlier this year – which means the sequel, which is going by the title Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2, has a larger budget. In fact, it’s estimated to be around ten times the budget of the first movie. The filmmakers are using some of that extra money to give the creature effects an upgrade, as you can see by the look of Pooh in a recently unveiled image from the film. That image can be found at the bottom of this article.

The Hollywood Reporter got the first look at this image of Pooh, and also sat down for an interview with Frake-Waterfield and producer Scott Jeffrey (who steps in front of the camera to play Christopher Robin in the new film). When asked how Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 is coming along, Jeffrey said, “It truly is much better. Last year, we made about 45 films, and the Winnie-the-Pooh one was just one on a conveyor belt. We just saw on Twitter that Winnie-the-Pooh had gone into the public domain and thought “ok cool, we’ll do that in April.” But now we’re in a position where the sequel has turned out really well. We had a substantially higher budget than the first. And we’ve got a little problem at the moment because there are too many deaths in it!“

Frake-Waterfield added, “Number two is better than number one in every single aspect. Because we’ve gone into this knowing on what platform scale it’s going, whereas in the first one, we didn’t really have much of an idea. We obviously didn’t expect it to go to the masses it did. This time we’ve gone into it knowing that will happen, so a lot more time can be dedicated towards it. I’ve not really worked on anything else this year. And that’s why all areas are now a massive jump up compared to the first. For example, the look of the creatures is quite an important thing. Before we had a mask bought online, some cleaning gloves from the shop downstairs and a red lumberjack shirt from Amazon. The whole monster was about £630 ($770). But this time we have people doing the prosthetics — it’s a company that has worked on Harry Potter’s Voldemort and Star Wars. And they’ve been in charge of the redesigns of the creature. And that’s why Pooh looks a bit more scary. There’s an extra level of detail there. … The prosthetics alone for the creatures ended up being over $20,000. So it’s a humongous difference. But it’s worth the investment because that’s your creature. That’s what people are watching horror for.“

Jeffrey confirmed that they’re still planning to create a cinematic universe with the Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey films and other horror movies inspired by children’s stories, like Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare and Bambi: The Reckoning. “We were actually meant to be shooting Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare but we weren’t quite ready with the script. I was meant to direct Bambi but switched to Peter Pan as it’s more my style. I’m pushing Peter Pan until April, and Bambi starts shooting in January. So we’re very much prepping right now. It’s going to be wild. … I want them to interact with one another. There’s going to be easter eggs in Winnie the Pooh 2 about two films that have not been announced yet. Just a little tiny wink. Same in Bambi. They’re very much connected, but it’s not in your face. And then later down the line, I guess when we run out of ideas, is where they’ll start meeting one another.“

A.A. Milne’s 1926 children’s book Winnie-the-Pooh and the characters in it lapsed into the public domain at the start of last year, and that’s how Frake-Waterfield was able to make these movies happen, no permission required. In the build-up to the release of the first movie, the filmmaker explained to Variety that Pooh and Piglet (go) on a rampage after being abandoned by a college-bound Christopher Robin. “Christopher Robin is pulled away from them, and he’s not [given] them food, it’s made Pooh and Piglet’s life quite difficult. Because they’ve had to fend for themselves so much, they’ve essentially become feral. So they’ve gone back to their animal roots. They’re no longer tame: they’re like a vicious bear and pig who want to go around and try and find prey.”

Matt Leslie, writer/producer of Summer of 84, wrote the screenplay for the sequel, working from a story he crafted with Frake-Waterfield. Plot details are being kept under wraps, but it has been said that this time “Pooh and friends will be leaving the 100 Acre Wood to take their fight to the quiet community of Ashdown“.

Are you looking forward to Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2? Check out the image of Pooh’s new look, then let us know by leaving a comment below.