Still fresh off her Academy Award for Best Screenplay for 2022’s “Women Talking,” (which was also nominated for Best Picture), Canadian writer/director Sarah Polley may have found her next gig. However, it’ll be one that surprises and possibly shocks some. Polley will be writing and directing a live-action adaptation of the animated “Bambi” story for Disney.
The move may surprise those that know Polley for her indie and dramatic work, films like “Take This Waltz,” the documentary “Stories We Tell,” last year’s aforementioned “Women Talking,” and the Academy Award-nominated “Away From Her.”
READ MORE: ‘Women Talking’ Director Sarah Polley Developing A Film Inspired By Her Awards Season Run
You could call it the Barry Jenkins “get that bag” move if you’re cynical (he’s gone from beloved indies to directing a—presumably highly-lucrative— live-action prequel adaptation of Disney’s “The Lion King.” Or, a more generous interpretation is kinda what Jon Favreau did over the years, purposefully taking on CGI, VFX-heavy films (starting with “Zarathustra”) to learn new tools and technology and apply them to your craft.
According to Deadline, the film is in early development, Polley is in talks to direct, AND the project is a musical and will feature music from six-time Grammy-winning country star Kacey Musgraves. Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster (“Transparent”) wrote the most recent draft of the script, and Chris and Paul Weitz’s Depth of Field will produce.
Disney had been hoping to make a live-action “Bambi” as far back as 2020 when they hired Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Lindsey Beer aboard as writers, along with the aforementioned Depth Of Field producers.
A coming-of-age film about a young fawn that loses its mother and then has to fend for itself with new friends like a rabbit and a skunk, “Bambi” was placed into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, given its cultural, historic, and aesthetic significance, in December 2011.
Look, sometimes filmmakers want to make all kinds of films, but cue up Twitter, and someone will be complaining that Disney is stealing all the good indie directors as if Polley had no active say in the matter, and come on, people.