LOS ANGELES – English author A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh has appeared in dozens of enchanting and wholesome films and radio adaptations since 1926.

Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood And Honey is not one of them. 

The horror film, made for less than US$100,000 (S$133,800) and released in American theatres on Wednesday, finds Milne’s endearing characters – the famous talking teddy bear and his friend Piglet – suffering from starvation after Christopher Robin leaves for college and is no longer around to feed them.

They kill and eat their donkey friend Eeyore, and then set off on a murderous spree.

The film is not expected to be a big hit at the box office, with the website Hollywood Stock Exchange forecasting just US$9 million in domestic ticket sales over four weeks.

But the picture hints at a scary future for major studios whose copyrights on famous characters are nearing expiration.

Walt Disney has controlled the rights to Winnie-the-Pooh since 1961 and kept depictions of Milne’s talking animals true to the spirit of the family-friendly material. The copyright expired in January 2022. 

Since then, Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends have been available to the public for other purposes.

Blood And Honey was written by Rhys Frake-Waterfield, an English horror-film producer whose Instagram bio says he has been “ruining childhood memories since 1991”. 

Disney declined to comment.

The film is being released in more than 1,500 American theatres by Fathom Events, a distribution company owned by the three largest cinema chains. Blood And Honey has taken in US$1 million since its premiere in Mexico in January. 

United States Congress last amended copyright law in 1998, extending the term to 95 years.

Book publishers, Hollywood studios and other intellectual-property owners will face similar issues as other long-held copyrights expire, said Mr Scott Landsbaum, a Los Angeles attorney with entertainment clients.

The copyright for Disney’s Mickey Mouse, who first gained fame in Steamboat Willie in 1928, expires in 2024, for example.

“Everybody knows Disney is not going to make a Winnie-the-Pooh as mass murderer movie, so no one is confused that this is a Disney movie,” Mr Landsbaum said.

But the company may choose to defend its property rights if anyone uses versions or features of characters that Disney believes it continues to own, Mr Landsbaum said.

“You’ll see a lot of litigation around that,” he said. BLOOMBERG