Last year, a new horror franchise took flight with Pooh: Blood & Honey. With the iconic bear now in the public domain, the film turned Winnie and Piglet into a pair of grim slasher villains carving up a post-grad Christopher Robin and several university students. It went over about as well as expected, but did well enough financially to kick off both its own sequel and a larger universe—sorry, Poohniverse—for more public domain characters to get a horror treatment.
Blood & Honey 2 already dropped this year, so now we’re getting our first look at the whole “expanded universe” part of the thing. Per Variety, classic characters Pinocchio and Peter Pan are set to headline their own individual films, both of which are currently being sold at Cannes. Pinocchio: Unstrung takes the boy puppet will be welcomed into the Poohniverse “with a bang,” said director Rhys Frake-Waterfield, who also helmed the two Pooh movies. The film’s being pitched as a subversion of Carlo Collodi’s classic 1883 book, and one that’ll rely more on practical gore—one scene, according to Variety, will see the title character wear the skin of one of his victims to “feel like a real boy.”
Meanwhile, Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare puts Martin Portlock (Scream of the Wolf) in the title role, who’s gone and kidnapped Michael (Peter DeSouza-Feighoney), the younger brother of Wendy Darling (Megan Placito). She endeavors to save him with Tinkerbell’s (Kit Green) help, who in this universe is a heroin junkie convinced that it’s actually pixie dust. Once you’re done rolling your eyeballs, the cast is further filled by Charity Kase as Captain Hook, and the likes of Kierston Wareing, Nicholas Woodeson, Olumide Olorunfemi, and Teresa Banham in currently undisclosed roles.
Like the Marvel movies this is trying to emulate, Peter and Pin are getting solo movies to prepare them for a bigger future in the so-called Twisted Childhood Universe. Both characters will converge with Pooh and Piglet in Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble in 2025, which’ll also introduce the likes of Sleeping Beauty and the Mad Hatter. The TCU aims to keep on keeping on after the crossover, because a third Blood & Honey is locked in for 2026, while solo movies for Sleeping Beauty and Snow White are also said to be in the works. Yay?
At time of writing, Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare is set to release later this year after production wraps, while Pinocchio: Unstrung will release in 2025 ahead of Monsters Assemble.
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Justin Carter
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