Coming from Baboon Animation and IQI Media, along with director Mike de Seve (Madagascar, Monsters vs. Aliens) and writer John Reynolds (The Mr. Peaboy & Sherman Show), the plan is to go back to the very beginning. As Reynolds explained, "We're telling the surprising origin story of the 'silly young bear' and his friends when they were still kids, in a way to connect with 21st c century kids."
It will certainly be interesting to see what sort of approach they take to avoid the potential Disney legal landmine as the Mouse House holds rights to all of their filmed versions, but it is true that in America the original Pooh and his friends are indeed in the public domain except (at least until the New Year) for Tigger.
Offers executive producer Charlene Kelly, "A.A. Milne's bear has aged gracefully in the last hundred years. But what happened, back-when, that made him and his pals who they are in the book? A heck of a big adventure, that's what — one that needs a big screen. Audiences will be transported to somewhere they never expected."
de Seve adds, "I think this unsinkable young cub is totally relatable for today's kids, with his hell-bent craving for honey and his ludicrous schemes to get it. The whole gang is hilarious and are even more hilarious as kids, we're finding out."
Alan Alexander Milne (1882 to 1956) was actually a successful playwright before he wrote Winnie-the-Pooh. In 1925 he started writing the stories, focusing on a boy named Christopher Robin (after the author's own son, Christopher Robin Milne), finding inspiration in the boy's stuffed animals. The character of Pooh first made an appearance on Christmas Eve, 1925 in the pages of the London Evening News in a story titled "The Wrong Sort of Bees."
In 1926 he wrote the book Winnie-the-Pooh (which was a collection of a short stories), followed in 1928 by The House at Pooh Corner. When he died in 1956, the left the rights to the Pooh books to his family, the Royal Literary Fund, Westminister School and the Garrick Club. Following her husband's death, his widow sold her rights to producer Stephen Slesinger, whose wife, after his death, sold the rights to the Walt Disney Company. Flash forward to 2001, and the other beneficiaries sold their interest in the property to Disney for $350 million, allowing the Mouse House to be the sole owner of all Winnie-the-Pooh material that has not fallen into the public domain.