Published Feb 6, 2026, 12:44 PM EST
Abigail is an editor for ScreenRant, currently writing and editing movie news. You may also have seen her thoughts on animated television, musical theater, and fantasy literature in Paste Magazine, Fantasy Hive, or The Oxford Blue. She has also written SR lists and op-eds covering movies, TV, and books as well. She is an English major through and through, having graduated with a B.A. from UC Santa Barbara and an MPhil from Oxford University.
One of Disney's reported live-action remakes is not moving forward — at least for the time being.
In January 2020, Disney announced that it would produce a live-action remake of Bambi, following in the footsteps of The Lion King and The Jungle Book's usage of photo-realistic CGI animation. Sarah Polley was attached to direct, with Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Lindsey Beer on board as screenwriters. However, there have been no updates on the project in years.
Robertson-Dworet is now co-creator of Prime Video's Fallout — becoming a two-time Emmy nominee from this — and was asked about Bambi while promoting the hit video game-to-TV adaptation in an interview with The Direct. "I have not found out in at least five years a single update on the Bambi movie," said Robertson-Dworet.
She also called Fallout "an intensely full-time job," admitting: "So I have been off it since I started on Fallout, and have not even kind of checked in, to be totally honest with you, that's true." Still, seemingly, no one from Disney has checked in with her either. Polley and Beer have also both reportedly left the project since it was announced.
With Fallout renewed for season 3, Robertson-Dworet likely wouldn't return to Bambi even if Disney did move forward with it, as she went on to say: "I'm sad to say, I'm not the right person. I'm always rooting for a Bambi movie… My attention is so fully taken up by this that I'm just behind at the time of what's going on on Bambi."
The Walt Disney Company has steadfastly continued remaking its animated classics into the 2020s, and there have been both major successes and flops. Namely, the recent massive flop of 2025's Snow White suggests that remaking the oldest of Disney's movies will end in failure. Bambi was released in 1942, five years after the original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Disney temporarily shelved its plans to remake Tangled after Snow White's theatrical release, seemingly believing that interest in the Disney Princess remakes or remakes in general was in decline. But after the live-action Lilo & Stitch grossed more than $1 billion in 2025, the company started work on Tangled again, recently announcing the casting of the main characters.
Additionally, the live-action remake of Moana (based on the animated movie that only came out in 2016) is slated for this summer. Also worth noting is that the 2019 remake of Dumbo (based on a 1941 movie) was another flop. These recent trends indicate that Disney will just abandon Bambi, focusing more on reboots of its 21st-century films.
Ironically, the horror reimagining Bambi: The Reckoning came out in 2025, even scoring a "fresh" 63% on Rotten Tomatoes. Disney could always return to Bambi, but they would apparently have to find a new creative team.
Bambi is available to stream on Disney+
Release Date August 14, 1942
Runtime 70 minutes
Director James Algar, Samuel Armstrong, David Hand
Writers Felix Salten, Perce Pearce, Larry Morey, Vernon Stallings, Melvin Shaw, Carl Fallberg
English (US) ·