Bambi: Sarah Polley is in talks to direct the live-action adaptation of the Disney animated classic

Academy Award winner Sarah Polley is in talks to direct a live-action adaptation of the Disney animated classic Bambi. The project is in early development at the House of Mouse, with Polley poised to roll cameras for her most significant undertaking yet. Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Lindsey Beer were named the project’s writers in 2020, but that was a while ago, and the ongoing WGA writers’ strike could hamper their participation.

Released in 1942 as the fifth feature film from Walt Disney Productions, Bambi tells the story of a fawn who makes friends with other animals in a serene yet dangerous forest. When Bambi’s mother is shot and killed by a human hunter, Bambi depends on his friends to carry him through the pain of loss and help him become the leader his mother always intended. Disney’s version adapts Felix Salten’s 1923 novel Bambi, a Life in the Woods.

Directed by David Hand and an assortment of sequence directors, Bambi grossed $267M worldwide, making the coming-of-age tale a hit for the House of Mouse. Hailed as a beloved classic, Bambi is not without its darkness. The movie traumatized young viewers upon release, with Bambi’s mother’s death leaving a lasting impression on innocent minds. People who remember seeing the film at a young age will tell you that the loss of Bambi’s mother still haunts them, so they learned about Disney’s propensity for darkness early on.

Sarah Polley won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for her riveting drama Women Talking. The film stars Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Judith Ivey, and Sheila McCarthy, with Ben Whishaw and Frances McDormand. Polley released a heartfelt statement about the film before its release. You can read the message in full below:

“In Women Talking, a group of women, many of whom disagree on essential things, have a conversation to figure out how they might move forward together to build a better world for themselves and their children. Though the backstory behind the events in Women Talking is violent, the film is not. We never see the violence that the women have experienced. We see only short glimpses of the aftermath. Instead, we watch a community of women come together as they must decide, in a very short space of time, what their collective response will be. When I read Miriam Toews’ book, it sunk deep into me, raising questions and thoughts about the world I live in that I had never articulated. Questions about forgiveness, faith, systems of power, trauma, healing, culpability, community, and self-determination. It also left me bewilderingly hopeful. I imagined this film in the realm of a fable. While the story in the film is specific to a small religious community, I felt that it needed a large canvas, an epic scope through which to reflect the enormity and universality of the questions raised in the film. To this end, it felt imperative that the visual language of the film breathe and expand. I wanted to feel in every frame the endless potential and possibility contained in a conversation about how to remake a broken world.”

What do you think about Sarah Polley directing Bambi for Disney? Were you traumatized by Bambi’s mother’s death when you saw the movie? How do you think kids today will react to that haunting cinematic moment? Let us know in the comments below.