Oscar-winning director Sarah Polley is in talks to direct a live-action adaptation of Bambi that’s in early development at Disney, according to Deadline.
What’s Happening:
- A live-action adaptation of Bambi has reportedly been in development since early 2020, with Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Lindsey Beer attached as writers at the time.
- The project, which Polley has signed on to as director, is set to be a musical and will feature music from country star Kacey Musgraves.
- Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster (Transparent) wrote the most recent draft of the script, and Chris and Paul Weitz’s Depth of Field will produce.
- The film is of course the coming-of-age story of Bambi, the young deer struck by tragedy who counts amongst his woodland pals — the rabbit Thumper and a skunk named Flower.
- An adaptation of Felix Salten’s 1923 novel Bambi, a Life in the Woods, released by RKO Radio Pictures in 1942, the original Bambi was just the fifth animated feature ever to emerge from Disney.
- The original Bambi was entered into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in December 2011, due to its cultural, historic and aesthetic significance.
- Polley is known for adapting and directing Women Talking, for which she won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar.