Disney’s live-action remake of Bambi needs a new director.
Indiewire reports that Sarah Polley, the actor turned filmmaker who won a recent Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for her film Women Talking, had been attached to update the 1942 Disney animated classic in the style of the company’s recent remakes like Cinderella, Mulan, and many more.
They write that after the recent departure of Disney executive Sean Bailey, Polley left the Bambi remake as well. The remake is supposedly “still in development at the studio” and according to “an individual with knowledge of Polley’s exit said there’s no drama in the split but simply said things didn’t work out.”
Bailey was a driving force behind Disney’s push into live-action remakes in recent years. After the 2010 Alice in Wonderland remake grossed $1 billion worldwide, the studio focused more and more of its creative efforts on similar updates of other old Disney classics.
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Disney had a lot of success (financially, if not creatively) with many of these films, including The Jungle Book and Beauty and the Beast. In the last few years, though, some of the remakes have proven more hit-or-miss with critics and audiences. Last summer’s lavish live-action rendition of The Little Mermaid only earned $569 million worldwide — not terrible numbers, but far down from the heights of the original Alice or The Lion King update, which earned three times that much in its theatrical release. And the reviews for remakes like Dumbo and Pinocchio were not great.
The company does still have several remakes in various stages of development, including a live-action Snow White. They’ve also announced a live-action Moana, which they expect to release in 2025. The animated Moana only came out eight years ago.
As for Bambi, we’ll see if the film ever sees the light of day, especially given recent comments by Disney CEO Bob Iger about the company quietly shelving some film projects that weren’t up to the studio’s standards. I would make a joke about the impossibility of a “live-action” remake of Bambi, but Disney has already made “live-action” versions of The Jungle Book and The Lion King, so really this is no different.
(I do, however, think we should start a rumor that Polley left the film because she wasn’t happy with the performance the deer were giving her. Not emotive enough! These deer actors just aren’t cutting it! And so on.)
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