Hey, let's not do this: Bambi is the next film slated for a "live action" Disney remake

Today in Christ, They’re Really Never Going To Stop Now, Are They? News: Disney has announced that it’s beginning development on a live-action* remake of its beloved 1942 animated film Bambi. Per Variety, the studio has tapped Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Lindsey Beer to write a script for the film, presumably still adapted from Austrian author Felix Salten’s 1923 novel Bambi, A Life In The Woods.

*Which is to say, fully CGI, and also maybe Billy Eichner is there.

Bambi’s relationship with its source material is actually sort of fascinating, in light of the numerous theories that Disney’s recent slate of CGI and live-action remakes is intended, at least in part, as an effort to extend the company’s iron grip on copyrights for its older works and keep them out of the public domain. The company actually got into a nasty fight with the owners of the book’s film rights back in the 1990s over its claims that the copyright on the book had expired (owing to differences between U.S. and German copyright law), which was ultimately settled in the publisher’s favor. As it happens, Salten’s book is reportedly set to enter the U.S. public domain on January 1, 2022, anyway—so, hey, that’s pretty convenient for anyone making a live-action CGI remake of the novel right around that time, huh?

Anyway: We can only assume that Disney’s horde of de-saturaters are already limbering up for the ordeal, and the monumental effort of sucking every last drop of color and life out of the original film’s lush and vibrant vision of the forest in spring, just like Jon Favreau’s team did with the similarly animal-focused The Lion King. We’re also sure the inevitable death of Bambi’s mother will be made exactly as traumatic as watching two faux-realistic deer stare into each other’s eyes while highly-paid voice actors talk over them can possibly be.