Sarah Polley in Talks to Direct Live-Action ‘Bambi’
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Sarah Polley — who earlier this year won the best-adapted screenplay Oscar for her feature Women Talking — is in talks to direct the live-action Bambi film for Disney, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.
The project is still in development, but should it happen, it would join Disney’s lucrative classic animation–to–live-action roster, the most recent addition to which was The Little Mermaid, which has made over $400 million at the box office to date.
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The Bambi project was first reported in 2020, with Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Captain Marvel, Tomb Raider) and Lindsey Beer (Chaos Walking) set to pen the screenplay and Depth of Field, the production banner run by Chris and Paul Weitz and Andrew Miano, on board to produce. It’s unclear if this team is still in place. (Depth of Field worked with the studio on Robert Zemeckis’ take on another classic animation, Pinocchio.)
The original movie, released in 1942, told the story of a young fawn named Bambi as he learns his place in the forest. With his two best friends, a rabbit named Thumper and a skunk named Flower, Bambi comes of age as he faces the joys and heartache (see: traumatizing loss of a parent) of growing up. The movie is seen as one of the cornerstones of Disney’s legacy.
The Bambi live-action film would be more akin to The Lion King and Jungle Book, with CGI-generated animals voiced by stars, as opposed to entries like Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast, which have the actors as a physical presence in the film.
Polley worked as a child actress before transitioning to filmmaking, with a career that has included award-winning doc Stories We Tell and narrative dramas Take This Waltz and Away From Her. She is repped WME, Canada’s GGA, Circle of Confusion and Jackoway Austen.
Deadline was the first to report this news.
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