A new report claims that the live-action remake of Bambi might not be going forward after the film’s director Sarah Polley exited the project.
A scene from Bambi (1942), Walt Disney Productions
TheWrap’s Drew Taylor reports that director Sarah Polley is no longer part of the project writing, “TheWrap has exclusively learned that Sarah Polley is no longer directing a new version of Bambi.”
He added, “It’s unclear if the project will move forward now that Bailey is gone.” Bailey is Sean Bailey and he was most recently the President Walt Disney’s President of Motion Picture Studios. He was seemingly being fired by The Walt Disney Company at the end of February.
Deadline’s Anthony D’Alessandro and Mike Fleming Jr. reported, “Effective immediately, Walt Disney‘s President of Motion Picture Studios Sean Bailey, who turned the company’s animation vault into a multibillion-dollar live-action movie business, is departing after 15 years on the lot.”
A scene from Bambi (1942), Walt Disney Productions
Polley was reported to be attached to the project just last year with Deadline’s Matt Grobar reporting, “Sarah Polley is on to the most epic undertaking of her filmmaking career thus far, as Deadline understands that the filmmaker is in talks to helm a live-action take on Bambi in very early development at Disney.”
Grobar also shared that the film was set to be a musical with Kacey Musgraves attached to work on the music.
The film had been in the works for a number of years with an original draft of the script written by Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Lindsey Beer.
The most recent version of the script was written by Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster.
A scene from Bambi (1942), Walt Disney Productions
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As noted by Deadline, Bailey was the architect of adapting Disney’s numerous animated classics into live-action films. Early films had incredible success with 2017’s Beauty and the Beast raking in $1.2 billion at the box office on a $160 million production budget.
That success continued with Aladdin in 2019. The movie grossed just over $1 billion on a $182 million production budget. The Lion King also raked in $1.6 billion in 2019 albeit it had a $260 million production budget.
Halle Bailey as Ariel in Disney’s live-action THE LITTLE MERMAID. Photo by Giles Keyte. ©. Mulan never got a box office release in the United States due to Covid. Nevertheless, it’s DVD and Blu-ray sales are anemic. The-Numbers reports it only grossed $24.3 million in sales. For comparison Aladdin did $44.4 million and The Lion King did $52.1 million.
2021’s Cruella struggled at the box office as well. The film only grossed $225.8 million. It reportedly had a production budget of $200 million meaning the film lost quite a bit of money after theaters take their cut of the grosses and the marketing costs are factored in.
A number of films also went straight to Disney+ such as Pinocchio and Peter Pan & Wendy, where they failed to connect with Disney+ subscribers. Finally, The Little Mermaid only grossed $568.3 million worldwide despite having a $250 million production budget. The film needed to gross at least $625 million to break even.
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Emma Stone as Cruella in Disney’s live-action CRUELLA. Photo by Laurie Sparham. © 2021 Disney Enterprises Inc. All Rights Reserved.
The Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger also confirmed during an appearance at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference last week that he had cancelled a number of projects that were in development.
Iger said, “You got to make those tough calls. We’ve actually made those tough calls. We’ve not been that public about it, but we’ve killed a few projects already that we just didn’t feel were strong enough.”
It’s possible Bambi is one of the projects.
A scene from Bambi (1942), Walt Disney Productions
Another of those projects might be The Sword in the Stone live-action film. Director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, who was previously attached to direct the film told ScreenRant the movie is on hold.
He said, “That was a project that I was attached to years ago, but it was put on hold. From this day, to be honest with you, I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I think it’s a great project and a great story that needs to be told, but I don’t know what is gonna happen. Let’s see; fingers crossed.”
“As you can imagine, with all these movies, you never know when it’s going to happen,” he continued. “I really hope that Disney greenlight[s] the movie, but right now, I don’t know anything about it. Also, the experience that I have now after [Damsel] would be fantastic to apply to The Sword in the Stone, for sure.”
The Sword in the Stone (1963), Walt Disney Productions
What do you make of Bambi potentially being scrapped by Bob Iger and The Walt Disney Company?
