Winnie the Pooh (Film)

### Story By

Stephen Anderson, Clio Chiang, Don Dougherty, Don Hall, Kendelle Hoyer, Brian Kesinger, Nicole Mitchell and Jeremy Spears

### Production Companies

Walt Disney Pictures
 Walt Disney Animation Studios

### Preceded By

Pooh's Heffalump Movie

**Winnie the Pooh** is a 2011 animated film directed by Stephen Anderson and Don Hall, and is the fifth instalment in the Winnie the Pooh franchise.

It is the 51st Disney animated feature film and was released on July 15, 2011.

## Plot

Christopher Robin is a young boy whose story takes place inside a storybook, whose letters can be seen around many of the scenes. Winnie the Pooh wakes up one day to find that he is out of honey. While out searching for more, Pooh discovers that Eeyore has lost his tail. Pooh, Piglet, Rabbit, Owl, Kanga and Roo come to the rescue while Tigger has his bouncing fun. Christopher Robin decides to hold a contest to see who can find a replacement for Eeyore's tail. The prize for the winner is a fresh pot of honey. After everyone else's failed attempts to replace Eeyore's tail, Kanga suggests that they use a scarf. This is declared the winner, but it soon unravels.

The following day, Pooh still has not been able to find any honey. He goes to visit Christopher Robin and finds a note that says "Gon Out Bizy Back Soon", a misspelling of "Gone Out, Busy, Backson". Pooh is unable to read the note, so he asks for Owl's help. Owl's poor reading comprehension skills lead Pooh and his friends to believe that Christopher Robin has been abducted by a ruthless and mischievous creature they call the "Backson". Rabbit plans to trap the Backson in a pit, which they think he will fall into after following a trail of items leading to it. Meanwhile, Tigger, who wants a sidekick to help him defeat the Backson, recruits a reluctant Eeyore to be a second Tigger. He dresses up like the Backson and tries to teach Eeyore how to fight. Eeyore manages to escape from Tigger and hides underwater, where he discovers an anchor.

After a failed attempt to get honey from a beehive, Pooh's imagination combined with his hunger get the better of him, and he ends up accidentally eating some mud and falling into the pit meant for the Backson. Rabbit, Kanga, Roo, Owl, and Piglet use Eeyore's anchor "replacement tail" as a rope to try to get Pooh out, but everyone but Piglet falls in. Piglet tries to help them out, but consistently overinterprets Rabbit's instructions, leading to the destruction of the only rope he has with him. He goes to find more rope, but runs into Tigger, and mistakes his costume for the actual monster. Piglet flees from Tigger on a red balloon, which knocks some of the storybook's letters into the pit.

After the chase, Tigger and Piglet fall into the trap as well, where Eeyore reminds Tigger that he, being "the only one", is "the most wonderful thing about Tiggers." Eventually, Pooh figures out how to use the fallen letters to form a ladder, and his friends are able to escape the pit. They soon find Christopher Robin, and tell him about the Backson, but he clarifies by saying that he had been out at school and was meant to be "back soon". The honey pot prize is given to the red balloon from earlier, much to Pooh's dismay.

Later, Pooh visits Owl, and discovers that Owl, not recognizing what it is, has found Eeyore's tail and is using it as a bell pull. Owl offers Pooh some honey for lunch, but Pooh, ignoring his tummy's loud rumbling, hurries to give Eeyore his tail back. Christopher Robin is proud of Pooh's selflessness; as a reward for his kindness, Pooh is given a pot of honey twice as tall as he is. The film ends with Christopher Robin and Pooh walking into the sunset as Pooh comments aside his tummy won't be rumbly for a long time.

In a post-credits scene, the Backson is revealed to really exist, but is actually very nice and gentle. He finds the items left for him, including the chalk drawing of himself, which he calls a "scary looking fella". Deciding to return the items to their owners, he starts picking them up but ends up falling into the hole.

## Cast and Characters

* Jim Cummings as Winnie the Pooh
* Bud Luckey as Eeyore
* Craig Ferguson as Owl
* Jack Boulter as Christopher Robin
* Travis Oates as Piglet
* Tom Kenny as Rabbit
* Kristen Anderson-Lopez as Kanga
* Wyatt Dean Hall as Roo
* Huell Howser as The Backson
* John Cleese as The Narrator

## Music

See Also: Winnie the Pooh (Soundtrack)

In order to search for song-writers, Anderson and Hall sent visuals to five song writing teams, and the team liked the demos returned by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, eventually backing them on board. The Lopez's' previously worked with John Lasseter and Disney music executive Chris Montan on the theme park musical version of Finding Nemo. They wrote seven tracks for Winnie the Pooh. Zooey Deschanel performed three songs for the film, including a take on the Winnie the Pooh theme song, "A Very Important Thing to Do" and an original end-credit song "So Long", which was written by Deschanel and performed with She & Him bandmate M. Ward. The film was scored by Henry Jackman, with additional music by Christopher Willis. The soundtrack was released on July 12, 2011.

## Production

Walt Disney Animation Studios' chief creative officer John Lasseter first approached Stephen Anderson and Don Hall in November 2008 about making a new Winnie the Pooh film for theatres, with the two becoming enthusiastic at the idea and accepting the project. In 2009, Lasseter, Anderson and Hall viewed the classic Winnie the Pooh feature shorts and films to figure out how to make the title character culturally relevant.

Following a trip to Ashdown Forest in Sussex, South East England to explore the location of A. A. Milne's original stories, the filmmakers enlisted Burny Mattinson, a Disney veteran who worked as the key animator on the 1974 short Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too, to serve as lead storyboard artist for the film, with Anderson and Hall directing. After seeing all the feature films about Winnie the Pooh, Mattinson thought he could use Milne's story "In which Eeyore loses his tail and Pooh finds one" as the basic idea for the plot. Mattinson's five-minute pitch for the sequence where Eeyore loses his tail is credited with convincing Disney executives to make the film a feature-length work instead of a featurette. Regarding the decision to use hand-drawn (traditional) animation in lieu of computer-generated imagery (CGI), Anderson stated that "If this were a fully CG-animated [sic] and rendered and lit Pooh, it just wouldn’t feel right. We would be doing the characters a real disservice." Many of the animation staff from The Princess and the Frog (2009) were brought in to work on Winnie the Pooh, as the two films involved traditional animation, and additional clean up/in-between animation and digital ink and paint was provided by Yowza Animation, Inc.. The production would also use the same software utilized for Princess and the Frog, Toon Boom Animation's Harmony, to digitally ink and paint the drawings.

Originally, the film was supposed to feature five stories from the A. A. Milne books, but the final cut ended up drawing inspiration from three stories. Lasseter had also announced that Rabbit's friends and relatives would be in the film, but their scene was ultimately deleted.

## Release

The film was released on Wednesday, April 6, 2011 in Belgium; April 11 in Germany; and on April 15 in the United Kingdom. It was released on July 15, 2011, in the United States.

### Home Media

The film was first released as number 51 in the Animated Classics range on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital download on October 25, 2011. The releases included animated shorts The Ballad of Nessie and Mini Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: "Pooh's Balloon," as well as deleted scenes.

## Reception

### Critical Response

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 90% of 131 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 7.2 out of 10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Short, nostalgic, and gently whimsical, Winnie the Pooh offers young audiences, and their parents, a sweetly traditional family treat." Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 74 out of 100, based on 26 critics, "generally favourable reviews". CinemaScore polls reported that the average grade moviegoers gave the film an "A−" on an A+ to F scale.

Gary Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times says the film "proves a fitting tribute to one of the last century's most enduring children's tales." A. O. Scott of The New York Times praised the film for being able to charm children and parents alike. Roger Ebert, giving it 3 stars out of 4, wrote in his review, "In a time of shock-value 3-D animation and special effects, the look of the film is gentle and pleasing. It was hand-animated, I'm told, and the backgrounds use a subtle and reassuring watercolour style. It's a nightmare-proof experience for even the youngest viewers."

While Platform Online stated that Winnie the Pooh's "hand-drawn animation is such a welcome relief," it found the film's run-time length to be more of an issue, which it stated "At just 70 minutes, even aiming at kids this could have been longer – Pixar have been pushing films well over 90 minutes for years now, and it's clear the children can handle it. Just as you really get into the film it's over, and you're left wanting more."

### Box Office

In North America, Winnie the Pooh earned $7.8 million in its opening weekend from 2,405 single-screen locations, averaging about $3,267 per venue, and ranking sixth for the weekend. The film closed on September 22, 2011, with a final domestic gross of $26.7 million, with the opening weekend making up 29.44% of the final gross. Among its overseas grosses, Winnie the Pooh had its largest gross in Japan with $4.13 million; the country has had a long-standing affection for the character of Winnie the Pooh. Other international grosses include $1.33 million in Germany, $1.29 million in Poland, $1.18 million in the UK and $1.14 million in Russia. Overall, it made $23.4 million overseas, bringing the worldwide gross to $50.1 million over a budget of $30 million.