Sarah Polley in Talks to Direct Disney’s New ‘Bambi’

The recent Oscar winner is making an unexpected next movie into blockbuster territory, entering talks to tackle the re-imagined take on the story of the young deer and his friends.

Sarah Polley backstage with the Oscar® for Adapted Screenplay during the live ABC telecast of the 95th Oscars® at Dolby® Theatre at Ovation Hollywood on Sunday, March 12, 2023.

What do you do when you’re an indie darling who has recently won an Oscar for your latest, critically-praised drama? If you’re Sarah Polley, you accept a phone call from Disney asking if you’d want to make one of its animated-to-live-action movies.

At least, according to Deadline’s story, which is reporting that Polley is in the early stages of making a deal to handle ‘Bambi’ for the studio.

Bambi

"A great love story."

G1 hr 10 minAug 13th, 1942

Watch Bambi Online

Who is writer/director Sarah Polley?

Director Sarah Polley on the set of her film 'Women Talking,' an Orion Pictures Release.

Polley is a somewhat surprising choice for a big Disney movie, given that the filmmaker, who got her start as an actor from a young age, is mostly known for producing documentaries and making the sensitive dramatic likes of ‘Away from Her’ and ‘Women Talking’, the latter of which won her the Best Adapted Screenplay trophy at this year’s Academy Awards.

What’s the story of ‘Bambi’?

Walt Disney Productions' 1942 'Bambi.'

Adapted from Felix Salten’s 1923 novel ‘Bambi, a Life in the Woods’, the original film, released by RKO Radio Pictures in 1942, became just the fifth animated feature ever to emerge from Disney’s studios.

It’s the coming-of-age story of the title character, the young deer struck by tragedy who counts amongst his woodland pals the rabbit Thumper and a skunk named Flower.

And famously, it helped to create the template for Disney movie characters losing parents, as the death of Bambi’s mother still resonates (and causes tears) to this day.

Disney, which has seen success turning its animated output into live-action (or in the case of 2019’s ‘The Lion King’ remake, photorealistic CGI), is ploughing ahead on more of the movies –– ‘The Little Mermaid’ is doing decent business at the box office right now and a new ‘Moana’ is on course to land in theaters on June 27th, 2025, starring Dwayne Johnson, who will reprise his role as demi-god Maui.

Dwayne Johnson announces live-action 'Moana.' Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios.

The studio has had ‘Bambi’ in its crosshairs since at least 2020, with Geneva Robertson-Dworet (‘Captain Marvel’) and Lindsey Beer (‘Chaos Walking’) on board back then to write the script and Chris and Paul Weitz producing the film.

Since then, the Weitz brothers are still attached to produce but the scriptwriting duties have moved on to Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster, who co-wrote Mr. Rogers drama ‘A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood’, but probably more pertinently have Disney experience working on ‘Maleficent: Mistress of Evil’. Disney’s looking to keep the music level up too, as country star Kacey Musgraves is reportedly providing the tunes.

And Polley could end up an inspired choice to tackle one of these movies: after all, fellow respected indie director David Lowery (of ‘A Ghost Story’ and ‘The Green Knight’) has brought style and magic to both of his Disney efforts, ‘Pete’s Dragon’ and this year’s ‘Peter Pan and Wendy’.

Plus, even having big movie experience is no guarantee of success, as anyone who saw Robert Zemeckis’ ‘Pinocchio’ misfire can attest.