Jun 14, 2023

Disney Selects Sarah Polley to Direct CG Animated "Bambi" Remake

Disney has yet to finish making a remake of the classic animated feature, and the next title appears to be 1942's "Bambi."

Deadline, citing multiple anonymous sources, broke the news about Disney's remake plans, reporting that "Women Talking" writer and director Sarah Polley is in talks to direct the feature. Pauley's directing resume does not include any films with a lot of animation or CG, but she is a very accomplished filmmaker and actress who won an Oscar for her screenplay for "Women Talking."

As expected, many sources, including Deadline, are calling the film a live-action remake, but we are skeptical that Disney will feature the woodland creature in the new "Bambi." We're hoping for something akin to the 2019 CG-animated remake of "The Lion King."

Or maybe Twitter user Tom Zohar had some privileged information when he posted the tweet we're talking about yesterday.

Exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the scene where Bambi's mother is shot https://t.co/Nu8iIfky11 pic.twitter.com/n1BmADvWDn

- Tom Zohar (@TomZohar) June 13, 2023

In any case, the current script for this project, entitled Transparent, written by Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster, and produced by Chris and Paul Weitz's Depths of Field. The film is being developed as a musical and will feature music by Grammy Award-winning country singer Kacey Musgraves.

Disney's revival of "Bambi" always felt inevitable after the success of its remakes of "The Lion King," "Beauty and the Beast," "The Jungle Book," and "Aladdin," which became the highest grossing animated film in history. Then came the news that in 2020 the company was indeed working on a remake of "Bambi" and an update of the live-action/animated hybrid version of "Pinocchio."

At the time, we suggested that both films were a challenge for Disney in that they lacked the elements that made recent remakes successful. In the case of Bambi, the plot is thin, there is no villain, the most dramatic events occur off-screen, and the story is essentially a series of small tales that unfold at a steady pace.

The less said about last year's remake of "Pinocchio," the better.