Winnie the Pooh (2011 film)

Winnie the Pooh is a 2011 American animated musical comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is based on the book series of the same name written by A. A. Milne and illustrated by E. H. Shepard. The film is a revival of Disney's Winnie the Pooh franchise and the fifth theatrical Winnie the Pooh film released (either animated and overall), and the second in the Disney Animated Canon. It was directed by Stephen Anderson and Don Hall (in his feature directorial debut) and produced by Peter Del Vecho and Clark Spencer, based on a story that Anderson and Hall conceived with Clio Chiang, Don Dougherty, Kendelle Hoyer, Brian Kesinger, Nicole Mitchell, and Jeremy Spears.

Jim Cummings reprises his voice roles as Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, and Travis Oates reprises his voice role as Piglet, while newcomers Tom Kenny, Craig Ferguson, Bud Luckey, and Kristen Anderson-Lopez provide the voices of Rabbit, Owl, Eeyore, and Kanga, respectively. In the film, which is narrated by John Cleese, the aforementioned residents of the Hundred Acre Wood embark on a quest to save Christopher Robin from an imaginary culprit while Pooh deals with a hunger for honey.

Production began in September 2008 with Disney Animation's chief creative officer John Lasseter announcing that Disney wanted to create a film that would "transcend generations". The film was planned to feature five stories from the A. A. Milne books, before the final cut ended up drawing inspiration from three stories. The film features six songs by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez and a score composed by Henry Jackman, as well as a rendition of the Sherman Brothers' "Winnie the Pooh" theme song by actress and musician Zooey Deschanel. It is the first sequel produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios in twelve years since Fantasia 2000 (1999).

Winnie the Pooh premiered at the Roy E. Disney Animation Building on the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank, California on July 10, 2011, and was released in the United States on July 15. The film grossed $50.1 million on a $30 million budget and received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised its evocations of nostalgia but criticized its short runtime. Though it is Disney Animation's most recent traditionally animated theatrical feature film, producer Peter Del Vecho and Frozen directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee confirmed in 2019 that there would be possibilities for more hand-drawn feature films in the future.

Plot
The film's setting takes place inside a book, which tells about the adventures of Christopher Robin and his friends Winnie the Pooh (Pooh for short), Piglet, Rabbit, Eeyore, Tigger, Owl, Kanga, and Roo, who all live in the Hundred Acre Wood.

One morning, Pooh discovers that he has run out of honey and while searching for more, he visits Eeyore's home to notice that the latter's tail has gone missing. Pooh, Owl, and Christopher Robin organize a contest for anyone who can find a replacement tail for Eeyore, with the prize being a pot of honey per Pooh's request, but it proves unsuccessful.

Sometime later, Pooh, who is still searching for honey, decides to visit Christopher Robin, only to find a note written by him. Unable to read the note's words, Pooh has Owl read it, but the latter's poor reading comprehension skills lead everyone in the wood to believe that Christopher Robin has been abducted by a creature called the "Backson". In response, Rabbit comes up with a plan to stop the creature by leaving a trail of items leading to a pit in order to trap him.

As the group follows through with Rabbit's plan, Tigger decides to abandon it in favor of a more direct attack against the Backson. He soon finds Eeyore, who was accidentally left behind by the gang and decides to take the donkey under his wing. During the training, Tigger dresses up as the Backson to teach Eeyore how to fight, though the latter soon escapes.

Pooh's hunger distracts him from working with Rabbit's plan, which causes him to inadvertently fall into the Backson pit. After the rest of the group discover this, they reunite with Eeyore, who found an anchor for a replacement tail while hiding from Tigger, and decide to use the anchor to free Pooh, but its weight pulls everyone but Piglet in. Piglet tries going to Christopher Robin's house to find a rope to rescue everyone, but he is startled by Tigger in his Backson costume, and a comical chase ends with both of them getting trapped in the pit along with letters from the book's text, which Pooh uses to build a latter for everyone to climb out. Afterwards, the group reunite with Christopher Robin, who explains that the real reason for his disappearance was that he was at school.

Still hungry, Pooh continues his search for honey. He soon visits Owl's house, where he discovers that Owl has been using Eeyore's tail as a bell pull, unaware of who it belonged to. As Pooh leaves Owl's to return Eeyore's tail, Owl offers him to stay for some honey, but Pooh, ignoring his hunger, declines. As a reward for this act of selflessness, everyone in the Hundred Acre Wood presents Pooh with a giant honey pot, much to his delight.

In a post-credits scene, a real Backson, who is revealed to be a very nice and gentle creature, discovers the trail of items that Pooh and his friends left and falls into their pit.

Cast

 * Jim Cummings as:
 * Winnie the Pooh, a kind-hearted anthropomorphic bear who loves honey. Mark Henn served as the supervising animator for Pooh.
 * Tigger, a hyperactive and brave tiger. Andreas Deja served as the supervising animator for Tigger.
 * Travis Oates as Piglet, a small cowardly pig and Pooh's best friend. Bruce W. Smith served as the supervising animator for Piglet.
 * Bud Luckey as Eeyore, an old miserable grey donkey who loses his tail. Randy Haycock served as the supervising animator for Eeyore.
 * Huell Howser as Backson, the mysterious creature who was thought to have kidnapped Christopher Robin. Eric Goldberg served as the supervising animator for the Backson.
 * Jack Boulter as Christopher Robin, a young human boy and one of Pooh's best friends. Henn also served as the supervising animator for Christopher Robin.
 * Tom Kenny as Rabbit, a pretentious and strait-laced rabbit who loves planting vegetables in his garden. Goldberg also served as the supervising animator for Rabbit.
 * Kristen Anderson-Lopez as Kanga, a female kangaroo and Roo's mother. Smith also served as the supervising animator for Kanga.
 * Wyatt Dean Hall as Roo, Kanga's excitable joey. Smith again served as the supervising animator for Roo.
 * Craig Ferguson as Owl, an elderly owl who is not as wise as he thinks and tells very long and boring stories about his family. Dale Baer served as the supervising animator for Owl.
 * John Cleese as The Narrator

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 theaters, 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/inbetween 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. In an interview with ABC 4, Ken Sansom was asked about voicing Rabbit in the film, he stated, "I'm not sure." He was replaced by Tom Kenny, although Sansom claimed he was still under contract.

Release
The film was released on 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.

Short films
The film was preceded by the animated short The Ballad of Nessie, which tells the story of how the Loch Ness Monster and her best friend MacQuack (a rubber duck) came to live in the loch they now call home. In some international screenings, the episode "Cubby's Goldfish" from the Disney Junior series Jake and the Never Land Pirates was aired instead.

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.

Critical response
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 favorable 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 watercolor 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.

Soundtrack
In order to search for song-writers, Anderson and Hall sent visuals to five songwriting teams, and the team liked the demos returned by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, eventually backing them on board. The Lopezes' 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.

Other versions
The Walt Disney Company released five versions for the song "Welcome to my world" featuring Edyta Bartosiewicz for the Polish version, Witaj w moim świecie (Welcome to my world),  Anca Sigartău for the Romanian version, Bun Venit în Lumea mea (Welcome to My World), Zséda for the Hungarian version, Az én világom (My world),  Evgenia Vlasova for the Ukrainian version, Мій світ (My world),  and Beloslava for the Bulgarian version, Добре дошъл в моя свят (Dobre doshŭl v moya svyat).

Stage adaptation
A musical theatre adaptation, titled Disney's Winnie the Pooh KIDS, uses additional music from Will Van Dyke and additional lyrics and scenes by Cheryl Davies.