Disney has set its sights on yet another classic animated property to remake for modern audiences. This afternoon, The Hollywood Reporter broke the story that the Mouse House is moving forward with a new version of Bambi, the seminal feature about the young deer and his woodland friends released in 1942. And while that’s exciting to hear, this shouldn’t really come as much of a surprise, given that we already brought you this news last summer, with THR’s report now confirming our original scoop.
With no human characters – well, except for the barely-seen infamous hunter – Bambi will take the route previously established by The Jungle Book and The Lion King. And despite being counted as a live-action reboot, it’ll actually be the work of painstakingly realistic CGI. Obviously, those two films were helmed by Jon Favreau, but there’s nothing linking him to this remake just yet. In fact, he’s probably too busy with The Mandalorian now to work on it anyways.
Though a director has yet to be found, THR writes that Disney has hired two writers to adapt the original picture, Captain Marvel’s Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Chaos Walking’s Lindsey Beer. Depth of Field, the production company headed by Chris and Paul Weitz and Andrew Miano, is on producing duties.
THR also clarifies that the studio is aware Bambi “is less epic in scope and story” than most Disney movies, certainly those that modern fans are used to, but they’re “not aiming to shoehorn” extra stakes into the narrative and are expected to adapt the original charming tale relatively faithfully.
This is interesting, as Disney’s remakes based on older properties (Dumbo, Jungle Book) have tended to be looser with the material than the ones based on newer fare (Lion King, Aladdin), but Bambi will apparently buck (deer pun intended) this trend. So, don’t expect SNL’s live-action Bambi reboot starring Dwayne Johnson to come to fruition.
The next Disney remake to hit cinemas is Mulan, starring Liu Yifei and directed by Niki Caro, arriving on March 27th. While we wait for that though, let us know whether you’re excited for Bambi or not in the comments section below.