Pooh Bear and Piglet will be on the big screen later this year in the slasher film “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey,” but Tigger won’t be. Author A.A. Milne’s works entered the public domain last year, meaning Pooh and Piglet are fair game. Disney’s version of the characters are still very much under copyright protection, which includes Tigger, who didn’t appear until 1928 and is not in the public domain.
Director Rhys Frake-Waterfield says they had to go to painstaking lengths to avoid treading on Disney’s versions of the characters, which explains why, “Pooh [in this film] is a six-foot-two, half-man/half-bear hybrid who wears pants and has a long sleeve shirt.” Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey hits theaters on February 15.