Christopher Robin begs for his life. And is that a sledgehammer about to pulverize a minor character's head?
Thus unfolds the trailer for the 2023 movie "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey," a slasher-film riff on A.A. Milne's beloved characters, brought to you by ... the expiration of copyright and the arrival of the classic children's novel into the American public domain.
We were already living in an era teeming with remixes and repurposing, fan fictions and mashups. Then began a parade of characters and stories, led by Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse with many more to follow, marching into the public domain, where anyone can do anything with anything and shape it into a new generation of stories and ideas.
After a two-decade drought brought on by congressional extensions of the copyright period in 1998, works again began entering the public domain becoming available for use without licensing or payment - in 2019. The public began to notice in 2022, when Winnie the Pooh was freed for use as the 95-year copyright period elapsed on the novel that introduced him.
That made possible" Blood and Honey - not to mention a sequel that dropped last month, a forthcoming third and plans for a" Poohniverse" of twisted public domain characters including Bambi and Pinocchio. Pooh going public was followed this year by a moment many thought would never come: the copyright expiration on the original version of Mickey Mouse, as he appeared in the 1928 Walt Disney short, "Steamboat Willie."
The mouse and the bear are but the beginning. The heights of 20th century pop culture Superman among them - lie ahead.
Classic characters, new stories, fresh mashups. Will it be all be a bonanza for makers? Are we entering a heyday of cross-generational collaboration or a plummet in intellectual property values as audiences get sick of seeing variations of the same old stories?
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