Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honeyseemed to be heading to a whole new audience this weekend with a planned release in Hong Kong. However it seems that two days before the movie’s debut, the film has been unceremoniously pulled from over 30 theaters. While there has been no official word on exactly why the movie has been scrapped, it is believed that censorship pressure from China over a strange long-standing crackdown on Winnie the Pooh himself is to blame for the cancelation.
According to the reports, the only reason that the movie has fallen off he slate is down to the character of Winnie the Pooh being perceived to have an unflattering resemblance to China’s president, XI Jinping, with images of the character being censored in Google searches made from mainland China, and no Winnie the Pooh merchandise allowed in the country.
The movie’s creator Rhys Frake-Waterfield addressed the cancelation in correspondence withVariety, expressing his confusion over the movie. He said:
“Hong Kong as of Friday had 30+ cinemas booked to show ‘Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey.’ They even did one screening. It went passed censorship. Then ‘suddenly’ over last few days, something has happened which has resulted in multiple cinema chains simultaneously having to remove the showings from their cinemas, which is nothing to do with the film’s quality.”
Related:Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey Joins Rotten Tomatoes' Worst Movies of All Time List
Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey Was Ready To Hit the Asian Box Office
Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honeyis not a run of the mill movie about the lovable bear from the Hundred Acre Wood, but instead seesa horrific version of the characterslaughtering people who come within his territory. Having been made on a micro-budget, the film has already delivered a comparatively huge box office to budget return, and an Asian market release was only going to add to that. However, the reports have suggested that along with Hong Kong, the release in Macau has also been scrapped.
This is not exactly what the team behind the movie wanted to see, but it does continue a trend that has seen many Hollywood movies being shunned by the Chinese market, including last weekend’s terrible opening ofShazam! Fury of the Gods.
When it comes toWinnie the Pooh: Blood and Honeythough, the writing could have been on the wall from the moment the film received its classification a few weeks ago. The slasher was granted a Category III rating by the classification board, which is the hardest rating that the movie could receive. In China this rating is an exception, and many cinemas try not to show these movies due to it losing younger audiences, and require extra checks to ensure no-one under 18 is admitted or that could lead to a fine for the cinema.
All in all,Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honeyhasdefied its terrible reviewsto be a huge commercial hit, and has already kicked off the development of a sequel and other similar childhood-destroying films in the process. Losing the Asian releases may not be ideal, but it certainly is not going to break the movie’s run of success too much.
