Trivia / Winnie the Pooh (2011)

• Acclaimed Flop: As with Disney's previous 2D film, it made a profit and got rave reviews^note On Rotten Tomatoes, it sits at an impressive 91%; the only Disney Revival films that scored equal or higher being Tangled, Zootopia, Moana, and Encanto, but its release during a very busy summer movie season hurt its financial success. It didn't help that it was released on the same day as the highly anticipated and hyped Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. Disney has since stuck to November or early March releases for WDAS films ever since, only allowing Pixar's films to release during the summer.
• Creator Backlash: Of a more sad and bittersweet note, Peter Cullen was dismayed that he would not be voicing Eeyore, and acted out a sad, but awesome meeting between Optimus Prime and Eeyore. Ken Sansom was also reportedly dismayed since he had not been asked back for the 2011 film to reprise his role as Rabbit, claiming he was still under contract. Sansom passed away a year after the film's release.
• Creator Couple: Songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez are married.
• Descended Creator:
  • In addition to co-writing the film's songs, Kristen Anderson-Lopez is the voice of Kanga.
  • Bobby Lopez, the other songwriter, and Kristen's husband, did the uncredited sounds of Pooh's rumbly tumbly.
• Dueling Movies: Came the same weekend as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. The decision to set a film like this against the Grand Finale of one of the most beloved fantasy movie series of all time has Disney fans everywhere banging their heads. This decision is truly a head-scratcher, but there's a good chance fans of both would watch one and then follow it up with the other, assuming they're not planning to see Potter at midnight. (Preferred order most likely Deathly Hallows, then Winnie the Pooh.) It may also be a smart decision for Disney regarding families that have older and younger kids. Have one parent take the older kid to see Potter and then the other parent goes with the preschooler to see Pooh. Of course, that begs the question of what to do with the younger kid once Pooh is over, since there's no such thing as a two and a half hour Pooh film.
  • Disney went so far as to spoof the phenomenon in this trailer and this one.
• Genre-Killer: While a modest success, breaking even on a $30 million budget, it was nowhere the runaway success that their recent CGI features had been and, along with the somewhat more successful The Princess and the Frog, saw Disney's attempts to alternate between 2D and 3D with each feature flounder. Glen Keane, one of the studio's star animators, left shortly thereafter, closing off the original 2D production pipeline for good and then-studio head John Lasseter, while never "officially" announcing it, allowed his "every other movie is 2D" plan to quietly die. It's not all bleak though, as hand-drawn animation still lives on through their television shows and they have stated that they're at least open to the idea of traditionally animated films again in the future if it's right for the film, with Disney animator Eric Goldberg later confirming in April 2022 that Disney is planning a proper return to traditional animation.
• In Memoriam: The film is dedicated to storyboard artist, Dan Read, who worked on numerous Disney films and died a year prior to this film.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Owl was previously voiced by Andre Stojka, but is played by Craig Ferguson here.
  • Rabbit is voiced by Tom Kenny instead of his previous voice actor Ken Sansom.
  • Kanga was previously voiced by Kath Soucie, but is voiced by Kristen Anderson-Lopez in this film.
  • Peter Cullen voiced Eeyore in most previous Pooh media, but the character is played here by Bud Luckey.
  • In the European French dub, this is the first time Pooh and Rabbit aren't voiced by Roger Carel, as he retired before the movie's release (although he did voice Pooh in the trailer). Ever since this movie, Pooh has been voiced by Jean-Claude Donda (who has been Pooh's singing voice since The Tigger Movie), while Rabbit has been voiced by Michel Mella.
• Promoted Fanboy: Andreas Deja was a big fan of Milt Kahl's animation of Tigger in The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, and later got to animate Tigger himself in this film.
• Reality Subtext: When Bobby Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez auditioned to write the songs, they were having some trouble with their four-month-old infant. So in "The Backson Song", they had Kanga claim the Backsons "wake up babies at one and three" from experience.
• Role Reprise: Jim Cummings and Travis Oates are the only actors to reprise their roles, as Pooh & Tigger and Piglet respectively.
• Sequel Gap: The film came out 6 years after the last theatrical Winnie the Pooh film, Pooh's Heffalump Movie (2005). The gap is far longer if one only counts the productions by Walt Disney Animation Studios, in which there was a 28 year gap between their last Pooh production, Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore (1983) and this film (2011). If releases within the Disney Animated Canon are counted, it's 34 years between The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977) and this one.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The movie originally planned to adapt five stories from A. A. Milne's books if early interviews are any indications. Only three stories were adapted in the final film.
  • A deleted scene from the film shows that Rabbit's Friends and Relations from the books were originally planned to be included in the film at one point, but were removed in order to simplify the film.
• Working Title: The movie was originally titled, Winnie the Pooh and The Day in Which Many Things Happened.

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