Beloved puppet Pinocchio gets a horror makeover in new film
A new entity is ready to enter the public domain horror universe. Pinocchio, the beloved storybook character and puppet, is the latest to get the gruesome makeover.
Jagged Edge Productions released a poster for the upcoming film during the week of Aug. 25. Filming of “Pinocchio: Unstrung,” begins in October, with a release scheduled for 2025.
Director Rhys Frake-Waterfield also brought Winnie The Pooh, another iconic character in the public domain, to the horror genre.
More adaptations for these kinds of movie characters are on the way, with films featuring Bambi and Peter Pan set to release later this year.
Frake-Waterfield is working to create an “expanded horror universe,” and a film where these characters all come together is already in the works.
Step aside, Disney: Mickey Mouse belongs to all of us now, sort of
It’s the day Disney tried for decades to avoid: Mickey Mouse entered the public domain on Jan. 1. However, before appropriating Disney’s iconic mascot, know that the only free-for-all is the specific version from 1928’s “Steamboat Willie.”
Each year, copyrights expire on a new set of works. Individual copyrights are protected for the creator’s life plus 70 years. Meanwhile, corporate-owned works like “Steamboat Willie” remain intact for 95 years from initial publication.
“Copyright, by design, lasts for a limited time,” said Jennifer Jenkins, director of the Duke Center for the Study of Public Domain.
Jenkins also writes an annual column for “Public Domain Day,” sharing the latest set of works.
“While the copyright is active, it gives the authors, the rights holders, exclusive rights to make copies and to adopt the works,” Jenkins added. “And that’s a very good thing because it provides economic incentives that spur creativity. But after the term expires — when those works go into the public domain — that’s a great thing too, because that means those works can inspire future creators.”
Disney’s piece in question was originally set to enter public domain in 1984. However, the House of Mouse lobbied for a 20-year extension to the copyright term, which Congress granted in the 1970s. In 1998, Congress passed another piece of legislation known as “The Mickey Mouse Protection Act,” which added 20 years to the protection of Disney’s global ambassador and other works.
Only the “Steamboat Willie” version of Mickey — the pupilless mouse with a long tail and a nose that looks more like a rat’s — will enter the public domain. Any more modern versions remain protected under copyright law, as Disney frequently modernizes the mouse and updates the terms.
In 2022, another icon of purity entered the public domain: Winnie the Pooh from A.A. Milne’s original stories. But once again, this protects future iterations, specifically those used by Disney.
“It’s the original Winnie the Pooh as you encounter that charming little bear in the book from 1926, which has many of, not just the visual character, but the personality attributes. You know, the humility, the love of honey, the always being there for his friends,” Jenkins said.
Shortly after making his debut in the public domain, the honey-loving bear was given the horror treatment in “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey.” The film featured Christopher Robin’s return to the Hundred Acre Wood where Pooh and Piglet have become murderous psychopaths.
This marked the first time Pooh wasn’t made for kids, but a South Florida teacher screened it for their fourth grade classroom anyway. Students asked for the teacher to stop airing it and those who felt traumatized met with a school-provided mental health counselor.
“Everything that’s been spawned by Shakespeare, you’ve got ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’ from Hamlet; or you have ‘West Side Story’; or you have ’10 Things I Hate About You’ and ‘Romeo Must Die’ and ‘Gnomeo and Juliet’ — the whole point of the public domain is it enables all these reimaginings,” Jenkins said.
But it’s not unfettered access. There are still several limitations, especially when balancing the distinction between copyright and trademark law.
I can make my own animation off of it, but I can’t go around slapping Mickey Mouse the character on a backpack or a lunchbox or a pair of pajamas, because people would think it was Disney-licensed merchandise.
Director Jennifer Jenkins, Duke Center for the Study of Public Domain
“I can make my own animation off of it, but I can’t go around slapping Mickey Mouse the character on a backpack or a lunchbox or a pair of pajamas, because people would think it was Disney-licensed merchandise,” Jenkins said.
“It’s possible sometimes to have trademark rights, which is a different kind of law over characters,” she continued. “And they don’t expire after a set term the way copyrights do. They last for as long as someone is using that character as a brand.”
If the number of products featuring the famous mouse is any indication, Disney isn’t worried about losing that trademark. As for the public domain, the company itself has greatly benefitted from that arrangement since its inception.
“‘Snow White,’ ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ ‘Cinderella,’ ‘The Three Musketeers,’ ‘Christmas Carol,’ ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ all of these Disney movies were based on public domain works,” Jenkins said.
Disney told The Associated Press in December that ever since Mickey Mouse’s first appearance, “People have associated the character with Disney’s stories, experiences and authentic products. That will not change when the copyright in the ‘Steamboat Willie’ film expires.”
Pooh’s springy friend Tigger also joins Mickey Mouse in the public domain this year, but Jenkins says one of the best things about a copyright running out isn’t the headline-grabbing works.
“One of the most exciting things for me about the public domain is all of those works that no one’s thinking about, no one’s heard of, that have been completely forgotten after 70, 80, 95 years,” Jenkins said. “Those are the works where the barriers to access have been removed and they’re waiting to be rediscovered.”
Winnie-the-Pooh advises Texas students on active shooter situations
Parents and teachers in the Dallas, Texas, area are expressing their concern after schoolchildren as young as 4 years old were given Winnie-the-Pooh cartoon books advising them on what to do should an active shooter situation occur on their campus. Known as the “Stay Safe” book, it was sent home with children in pre-K and elementary classes, bearing a subtitle that reads: “If there is danger, let Winnie-the-Pooh and his crew show you what to do: run hide fight.”
“Recently a booklet was sent home so parents could discuss with their children how to stay safe in such cases,” a spokesperson for the Dallas Independent School District said. “Unfortunately, we did not provide parents any guide or context. We apologize for the confusion and are thankful to parents who reached out to assist us in being better partners.”
According to the FBI’s safety resources, the bureau recommends utilizing run-hide-fight tactics in the event of an active shooter incident, saying that doing so will “prepare and empower” individuals to survive such a situation.
Winnie-the-Pooh along with other characters from the Hundred Acre Wood are featured in the “Stay Safe” book advising children on survival strategies during a school shooting. This includes a page telling kids: “If danger is near, do not fear, hide like Pooh does until the police appear.”
It also recommends in other passages that children “run like Rabbit” if it is safe to do so, or “fight with all your might” if confronted by a gunman, accompanied with pictures of Kanga and Roo donning boxing gloves.
The book was produced by a law enforcement consulting firm in Houston and has no affiliation with any of Disney’s Winnie-the-Pooh media, as the A.A. Milne character became public domain in 2022.
Within the book’s pages is an indicator that it “was created in collaboration with active police officers and classroom teachers” to “teach and reinforce concepts of the run, hide, fight format, recommended by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security” in an “age-appropriate format.”
One local teacher called the book “terribly disturbing,” while Cindy Campos, a mother with children in the district says she’s afraid this literature indicates school shootings are being accepted as a part of life and “normalized.”
“It’s kind of like a slap in the face,” Campos said. “‘Hey! It’s normal now. Have a book about it.’”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom also joined in the criticism, writing in a tweet that “Winnie the Pooh is now teaching Texas kids about active shooters because the elected officials do not have the courage to keep our kids safe and pass common sense gun safety laws.”
Meanwhile the book’s distribution in Texas comes during the same week in which the state marked the one-year anniversary of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, the third-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history.
Texas has been home to five of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in the country over the past eight years, and as one of the states with the fewest gun restrictions in the nation, it was assigned a Gifford Law Center gun legislation scorecard grade of an “F.”
Taiwan’s punching Pooh badge goes viral amid military drills
As China wrapped up three days of large-scale combat exercises around Taiwan, unofficial air force badges depicting a black bear sucker-punching Winnie the Pooh have gone viral. Pooh has often been used in popular memes to symbolize China’s President Xi Jinping and the badge seemingly represents a symbol of Taiwan’s resistance against China’s recent aggressions.
China’s military declared Monday, April 10, it is “ready to fight” after completing drills that simulated sealing off the island, as reported by The Associated Press.
The exercises this time have focused more on air strength, with Taiwan reporting more than 200 flights by Chinese warplanes over the course of the three days. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, citing the People’s Liberation Army, said the exercises simulated “waves of simulated strikes” at important targets on the island.
China’s exercises were in response to Taiwan’s president visiting the U.S. the week prior, which Beijing condemned.
China wants to regain control of Taiwan, which it views as a breakaway province that separated from China in 1949. However, Taiwan views itself as a self-ruled island and currently has its own government and constitution.
The U.S. does not formally recognize Taiwanese sovereignty. However, joint military drills nearby stirred tensions as American and Filipino forces held their largest war drills in decades near the highly disputed South China Sea. In March, China’s military said that the USS Milius, a guided missile destroyer, had “illegally intruded into China’s Xisha territorial waters without the approval of the Chinese government.” Beijing added the move threatened the “peace and stability of the South China Sea region.”
According to U.S. intelligence, China has instructed its military to “be ready by 2027” to invade Taiwan. Meanwhile, the U.S. is expanding its presence by gaining access to new military camps in the Philippines, some of which lay right across from Taiwan.
Hong Kong cinemas will not show ‘Winnie the Pooh’ horror film
Hong Kong cinemas will not be screening a new Winnie the Pooh horror film in its territories, according to the movie’s distributor. The movie, which puts a scary spin on the classic Winnie the Pooh children’s show, was released in the U.S. back in February.
The original, family-friendly version of Winnie the Pooh has been used in humorous references to depict to President Xi Jinping in recent years. The depiction was born out of a popular 2013 meme showing President Xi and former President Obama alongside two Winnie the Pooh characters.
However, according to Reuters, the reference has also been used by some as a symbol of protest against President Xi.
China banned the film “Christopher Robin” in 2018. Three years later, Hong Kong implemented a censorship law barring films that “endorse, support, glorify, encourage and incite activities that might endanger national security.”
Meanwhile, in the U.S., the Xi-Pooh comparison was seen as a gold mine for entertainment, with shows like “South Park” making references to the joke in several episodes.
Hong Kong officials denied the new Winnie the Pooh film had been censored. The Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration said it had issued a certificate of approval for the horror movie, according to Reuters.
However, the film’s director Rhys Frake-Waterfield said “the cinemas agreed to show it, then all independently come to the same decision overnight. It won’t be a coincidence.” He added “They claim technical reasons but there is no technical reason. The film has showed in over 4,000 cinema screens worldwide.”
“Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” went viral when its trailer was released. The horror movie currently has a score of only 4% on the film rating site Rotten Tomatoes.