The director of a dark adaptation of Winnie the Pooh claims that he has received death threats for his creation ahead of the film’s release.
Here’s the trailer in case you haven’t seen it. You have been warned - it’s a childhood-wrecker.
So, the premise of the Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey is actually pretty simple.
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Abandoned by Christopher Robin after he grows up and loses interest in his friends in Hundred Acre Wood, Pooh and Piglet embark on a murderous rampage.
We told you it was going to ruin your childhood, didn’t we?
This film is as far away from the cuddly world of Pooh, Tigger, and Piglet as you can possibly get.
In one promo photo, the pair of grotesque antagonists stand menacingly behind an oblivious woman in a jacuzzi.
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That image alone is enough to give you nightmares.
Obviously, given the premise of the movie, it has attracted quite a bit of attention online, and it’s expected to do well at the box office when it eventually releases.
It’s out in Mexico already and has already made a decent profit, so there’s a good chance that it could become a huge box office success.
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Currently, the biggest success in horror at the box office is widely considered to be Paranormal Activity, which turned in $193 million against a budget of only $15,000.
Also, that went on to become a franchise worth more than $1 billion.
That means that British director Rhys Frake-Waterfield, who came up with the idea, could be set to become a very rich man.
It hasn’t come without a cost, though.
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He told AFP: “Look, this is mental, I've had petitions to stop it. I've had death threats.
“I've had people saying they called the police.”
That’s a bit far to go just because you’re p***ed off at a film.
And it’s already gone way beyond the expectations of the director, who admits that he had only hoped his film ‘might do a mini theatrical run in certain areas’.
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Instead, he’s eyeing up Paranormal Activity in the ‘budget to box office ratio’ charts.
"I really believed in the idea. Other people didn't... and now it's doing all right," the director added.
Given this seems set to do well, there are plans to rework other children’s classics.
Frake-Waterfield has his eyes on a sequel to this movie, as well as moving onto the Peter Pan and Bambi stories.
He explained: “One person literally yesterday was like, 'Do you want a million to make a film? Just tell me the concept and we will just go ahead with it,’
"That's really hard to get. It's hard to get funding for any film, but people are starting to really try and engage."
Imagine the backlash he is going to get for those films.
Still, if they sell as well as this first one is set to, it might just be worth it.
Topics: TV and Film, Weird