‘Pinocchio Unstrung’ Sees Wooden Doll Covered in Flesh and Blood as Director Rhys Frake-Waterfield Teases ‘Kooky, Crazy and Fun’ ‘Avengers’-Style ‘Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble’
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- "Pinocchio Unstrung" premieres in UK and North American theaters on July 24, distributed by Altitude and Viva Pictures respectively, as the fifth entry in the Poohniverse (Twisted Childhood Universe) franchise
- Rhys Frake-Waterfield cast Robert Englund — the Nightmare on Elm Street actor — as the voice of the sinister Cricket and Richard Brake, a frequent Rob Zombie collaborator, as Geppetto
- The film's plot follows a grieving boy named James who receives the puppet from Geppetto, only for Pinocchio to go on a killing rampage under the Cricket's influence, becoming a real boy "one piece at a time"
- Frake-Waterfield deliberately chose practical effects over CGI, enlisting Emmy-winning special effects artist Todd Masters ("Child's Play," "Dune: Part Two") to design the puppet, citing Guillermo del Toro's stop-motion Pinocchio as a tonal model
- The director is now developing "Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble," an Avengers-style crossover reuniting all Poohniverse characters, which he says he is hoping to film later this year or early next year
- The franchise launched with 2023's "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey," which Frake-Waterfield says earned over 50 times its budget despite a viral online backlash; he calls "Pinocchio Unstrung" the franchise's best-reviewed entry
Why it matters: The Poohniverse, born from internet mockery of its first film's low-budget shlock, has scaled up to bag horror icons (Englund, Brake) and land theatrical distribution — and Frake-Waterfield's explicit framing of the five-film slate as his roster of "Avengers" signals a coordinated franchise play rather than one-off IP stunts.
