'Winnie the Pooh' Is Getting the 'Avengers' Treatment

The success of the ultra-low-budget horror film Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023) meant that a sequel was inevitable, but things aren’t stopping there. Now, the gory reimagining of childhood’s most beloved silly old bear is getting the Avengers treatment and creating a shared universe of monsters.

Winnie the Pooh in a horror movie — Credit: Jagged Edge Productions

Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey had a certain kind of car-wreck appeal for horror fans. The idea of using classic children’s literature and fairy tales is not a new one, with everything from Snow White: A Tale Of Terror (1997) to Red Riding Hood (2011) getting the gothic gore treatment. However, A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh barely had a chance to enter the public domain in the United States in 2022 before Jagged Edge Production leaped into action to turn it into a gory slasher story.

Winnie the pooh surprised eating hunny — Credit: Disney

The film, produced, directed, written, and edited by Rhys Frake-Waterfield, envisioned a world in which the lovable creatures of the Hundred Acre Wood go feral and turn into savage, flesh-eating monsters when Christopher Robin (Nikolai Leon) abandons them for his human world. Pooh (Craig David Dowset) and Piglet (Chris Cordell) eventually take their revenge on their former childhood companion (plus a bunch of other people), and a new franchise is born.

Now, Jagged Edge Productions and ITN Studios have announced plans to create a shared universe of childhood figures turned into violent killers (per Variety). While it is likely that the extremely ambitious slate of films will take some time to be brought to the big screen (or streaming), the two production companies have already mocked up a poster with the title Monsters Assemble. To be fair, their Pooh horror movie was shot in ten days, so they’re probably more likely to make a 2025 release date than, say, Mahershala Ali’s Blade.

Check it out:

Poohniverse poster featuring multiple monsters — Credit: Jagged Edge Productions/ITN Studios

That’s a whole lot of childhood figures turned into ghoulish creatures. It appears that public domain creations like Bambi, Tinkerbell, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, Tigger, Piglet, The Mad Hatter, and Sleeping Beauty are all featured; notably, Pooh appears to be riding a grown, zombie-like Bambi while wielding a bear trap. So far, the following titles have been announced: Bambi: The Reckoning, Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare, and Pinocchio Unstrung.

Pooh and Piglett sneak up on woman in hot tub in 'Blood and Honey' — Credit: Jagged Edge Productions

According to Rhys Jake-Waterfield, “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…So yeah, it’s really exciting.” Monsters Assemble is clearly riffing on the Marvel tagline “Avengers Assemble,” while the poster appears to be taking direct inspiration from promotional art for Avengers: Endgame (2019).

Marvel competitors like Sony Pictures and DC Studios have struggled to make a shared universe of characters work for any length of time, but who knows? Maybe they just needed Pooh Bear to tie it all together.

What do you think of these new public-domain horror movies? Let’s hear it in the comments below!