Oh, Bother: Winnie the Pooh Slasher Shows Potential and Downside of Public Domain
“I used to believe in forever, but forever is too good to be true,” sings Winnie The Pooh in the 1997 Disney film Pooh’s Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin.[1] While Winnie was probably not singing about copyright law, the lyric rings true there as well: forever is too good to be true. The first Winnie The Pooh book was published in 1926,[2] and the copyright for the character was initially held by the author of that story, A.A. Milne.[3] Milne created the story and characters based on toys played with by his son, Christopher Robin Milne,[4] who also served as the namesake for the bear’s human companion.[5]. Milne followed up his initial story with The House at Pooh Corner in 1928, which introduced the character Tigger.[6] While Milne only created two books about Winnie The Pooh, the character has inspired countless stories, films, toys, and memories over nearly a century.[7] The copyright in the character passed from Milne to Stephen Slesinger to Disney over the years,[8] but on January 1, 2022, Winnie The Pooh entered the public domain.[9]
Public domain law varies from country to country, and within the United States it has changed over time.[10] Essentially, if no one has a copyright in an otherwise copyrightable item, that item is in the public domain for anyone to use however they please.[11] Works enter the public domain either because authors don’t want their copyright, there was a mistake in renewing the copyright,[12] or because enough time has passed that the government has decided the idea sufficiently belongs to the public now.[13] That third path is how Winnie The Pooh wound up in the public domain, and how audiences wound up with the film Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey.[14]
Starting in 1790, the law stated that authors had copyrights for 14 years from the work’s publication, renewable for an additional 14 years if the author was still alive.[15] The 1909 Copyright Act effectively doubled the protection for authors, extending the term to 28 years from publication, renewable for an additional 28 years.[16] This was the law at the time Winnie The Pooh was published, meaning the copyright would last, at most, until 1982. However, in 1976, another Copyright Act was passed adding 19 years to the maximum length of protection, meaning Winnie The Pooh was once again pulled away from the public domain until 2001.[17] Then, in 1998, the Copyright Term Extension Act added 20 more years of protection, meaning that the Winnie The Pooh copyright would last until December 31, 2021.[18] This time there was no last-minute law passed, and Winnie The Pooh officially entered the public domain at the start of 2022.[19]
That brings us to Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey, the theatrical debut for director Rhys Frake-Waterfield.[20] The film takes the classic characters Pooh and Piglet from Milne’s 1926 book and turns them into feral, bloodthirsty murderers going after a group of young women and an adult Christopher Robin.[21] The film came together quickly. Announced to be in development in May of 2022,[22] the film was shot in 10 days on a budget of less than $100,000.[23] While the general characters were in the public domain, certain aspects of them were not. For example, Pooh’s classic red shirt was added in a board game in 1932.[24] This meant Frake-Waterfield had to dance around some elements of the characters that have become iconic and focus only on what was in the original 1926 version of Pooh, and thus in the public domain.
There are plenty of pros to the public domain system. First, it allows artists to reimagine classic stories with fresh, modern perspectives. That’s what Joel Kim Booster did with his 2022 film Fire Island, the plot of which echoes Pride & Prejudice,[25] a work that has long been in the public domain.[26] The film was a hit among critics and fans alike.[27] Second, the public domain system can revitalize interest in older characters. The upcoming film Renfield, starring Nicolas Cage and Nicholas Hoult, is about Renfield, Dracula’s human servant in Bram Stoker’s Dracula,[28] a work that has been in the public domain in the United States for over a century.[29] The opportunity to expand on smaller characters in public domain works is certainly a positive. Additionally, the public domain system makes for an easy way to draw audiences in and make money for artists. While movie review websites have not been kind to Blood and Honey,[30] the box office has been much kinder. For example, despite screening in more than five times as many theaters around the country, the Liam Neeson-led film Marlowe barely managed to make, on average, half as much money as Blood and Honey during their opening weekend.[31] At the very least, people were interested in seeing what this movie was all about.
However, there are a myriad of downsides to the public domain system as well. One downside is backlash from fans of the original, as many of the reviews for Blood and Honey indicate.[32] As the second-most liked review of the film on popular film review website Letterboxd puts it: “Curse you public domain!”[33] Another downside is that every new movie might start to feel like a remake. Actors like Ben Affleck have stated that they are no longer interested in acting in films where you have a “built-in audience.”[34] Movies based on existing works are nothing new,[35] but perhaps with the rise of Marvel movies based on comic books[36] and TV shows like Sex and the City, That ‘70s Show, and How I Met Your Mother, among many others, getting reboots,[37] audiences are becoming tired of the same old stories. Tangentially, another downside of the public domain system is that it could disincentivize people to create things in the first place. If people watch Blood and Honey and are horrified at what their childhood memory is turned into, they might stop themselves from creating the next childhood memory for someone else out of fear that their creation could one day be turned upside down.
All in all, the public domain system brings more good to the table than bad. While it is true that there are risks to letting people take popular characters and stories in new directions, the access that is provided to creative people is largely good. And regardless, this trend is far from going away. In fact, it is just getting started. January 1, 2023 saw more works enter the public domain, including films like The Jazz Singer, books by Ernest Hemingway and Virginia Woolf, and songs by Louis Armstrong and the Gershwin brothers.[38] If that is not enough, 2024 will see an early version of Mickey Mouse enter the public domain.[39] Frake-Waterfield has already said he plans to make a sequel to Blood and Honey,[40] and to make similar horror films with characters like Bambi and Peter Pan.[41] While those films may or may not draw critical praise, they are just the tip of the public domain iceberg. It should be exciting to watch it all unfold over the next few years.
Footnotes
