Outside of suspiciously fumbling the marketing on movies like Strange World, there’s nothing Disney loves doing more at the moment than scrolling through their catalogue of beloved animated classics in search of their next live-action remake that absolutely doesn’t need to exist.
One movie on that particular deck is Bambi, based on the 1942 film of the same name that single-handedly paid my local video store’s electricity bill throughout my childhood, so you can imagine how much extra apprehension for this remake is in play for me in particular. Even then, and regardless of the fact that it’s in the fantastic hands of director Sarah Polley, Bambi just isn’t the sort of movie you gamble with.
Of course, perhaps I’m in the minority with that opinion; maybe a more innocent gamble is exactly what this gem needs. After all, relative to most children’s films these days, few parents would probably be okay with plopping their toddler in front of a movie that rather violently slaughters the protagonist’s mother right out of the gate, and when you’re a Disney movie with no plopped toddlers, you have no long-term audience.
Lindsey Anderson Beer, a former scribe of the upcoming remake, was aware of this and wasn’t about to let that tragically unforgettable scene deprive future generations of one of the great Disney films. In a recent interview with Collider, Anderson Beer revealed that, during the time she was still working on Bambi, before Pet Sematary: Bloodlines demanded her full attention, she and the rest of the writers were all in on figuring out a workaround for the 1942 film’s opening scene, suggesting that finding a way to properly replace it with something more kid-friendly in the remake would help to elevate the original and welcome more new audiences than usual.
She told them,
“Not to spoil the plot, but there’s a treatment of the mom dying that I think some kids, some parents these days are more sensitive about than they were in the past. And I think that’s one of the reasons that they haven’t shown it to their children. I do think there is a way to update Bambi and our take on it was… did give a little bit more of a scope to it. And I just think that to be able to bring it to life for kids these days in a way that maybe they relate to a little bit more would be of service to the original.”
That safer approach is all well and good and even necessary, and I hope to Mickey himself that the live-action Bambi remake sticks the landing and brings younger viewers the same joy that I experienced all those years ago. Still, when is Disney going to to stop risking their legacy hits with remakes and start revisiting some of their weaker movies that would almost objectively benefit from a fresher attempt? (Treasure Planet, I’m looking at you.)
(featured image: RKO Radio Pictures)
