Cinema-goers in Hong Kong and neighboring Macau won’t get the chance to see “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” in theaters, as distributor VII Pillars Entertainment has announced the film’s release has been canceled.
“It is with great regret to announce the scheduled release of ‘Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey’ in Hong Kong and Macau on March 23 has been cancelled,” the company wrote on Facebook Tuesday. “We are sorry for the disappointment and inconvenience.”
VII Pillars Entertainment told The Associated Press that cinema chains informed the company they could not show the movie in theaters, and the distributor said it didn’t know the reason behind the cancellation.
As the AP reports, however, “Winnie the Pooh” has become a mocking reference to China’s President Xi Jinping, and Chinese censors even banned social-media searches for the animated character for a period of time. Plus, in 2018, China blocked the release of “Christopher Robin,” a live-action film featuring the bear.
The decision not to release “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” in Hong Kong and Macau comes after a 2021 decision by Hong Kong authorities to ban screenings of movies believed to run afoul of a national security law, the AP reports.
One source speculated to The Hollywood Reporter that “political pressure” got “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” pulled from theaters, with speculation that China’s Pooh crackdown has reached Hong Kong.
Kenny Ng, a professor at Hong Kong Baptist University’s academy of film, suggested to the AP that commercial decisions have become a way for the government to silence criticism, adding that it has mostly been non-commercial movies that have been censored over the last two years.
Written and directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield, “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” stars Craig David Dowsett and Chris Cordell as Pooh and Piglet as they terrorize Christopher Robin and other college students after Christopher abandons them in the Hundred Acre Wood. The movie has so far earned $4.1 million at the global box office and has a 4% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes.