Disney is reportedly negotiating with Oscar-winner Sarah Polley to direct a live-action version of the children’s classic Bambi, which turns 100 this year. The 44-year-old Canadian-born Polley recently won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Women Talking.
Disney’s celebrated animated version of the Bambi story was released 81 years ago, based on the 1923 novel by Felix Salten. It was Disney’s fifth animated feature, and it won several Academy Award nominations while grossing more than 7 million worldwide.
Fans are fawning over the prospect that the live-action film will be a musical that will include compositions by country-music star Kacey Musgraves, a six-time Grammy winner.
According to published reports, the script is being drafted by Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Micah Noah Harpster. Earlier drafts had been written by Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Lindsey Beer, who had joined the team in 2020, when Disney first began developing Bambi.
The new project will be produced by Chris and Paul Weitz via their Depth of Field entity.
Polley’s drama Women Talking was based on Miriam Toews’s novel of a real-life story of sexual abuse in a Mennonite colony in Bolivia. In addition to her directing the film, she also wrote the script. The film debuted at Telluride and won numerous awards, including a Golden Globe nomination. Her other credits as a director include Stories We Tell, Take This Waltz, and Away From Her.
Polley started her film career as a child actor, playing the role of Ramona Quimby in the television series Ramona. She also played Sara Stankey in the Canadian TV series Road to Avenlea. She later starred in feature films such as The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, The Sweet Hereafter, Guinevere, and Dawn of the Dead.
Disney has several other live-action movies on its list, including Snow White and Mufasa: The Lion King. A non-Disney horror-film adaptation, Bambi: The Reckoning, directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield, will see the no-longer-gentle fawn reimagined as a “vicious killing machine.”
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