The classic Disney film Bambi is set to be turned into a slasher movie titled Bambi: The Reckoning.
The project is being handled by the team who created Winnie The Pooh: Blood And Honey, which is set for release in the US early next year. The making of that film became possible after the character of Winnie the Pooh entered public domain at the start of the year, allowing anyone to use the character in creative media free of copyright laws.
Now, Dread Central reports ITN Studios and Jagged Edged Productions are working on a gory retelling of Bambi, with Scott Jeffrey said to have signed up to direct alongside …Blood And Honey director Rhys Frake-Waterfield. According to Digital Spy, filming is slated to begin early next year.
“The film will be an incredibly dark retelling of the 1923 story we all know and love,” said Jeffrey. “Finding inspiration from the design used in Netflix’s The Ritual, Bambi will be a vicious killing machine that lurks in the wilderness. Prepare for Bambi on rabies!”
The Disney adaptation of Bambi that was part of most people’s childhoods arrived in cinemas in 1942, an adaptation of the 1923 Austrian novel Bambi: A Life In The Woods. It is the original story that has been in the public domain since 2016 – according to Collider, Jeffrey is not permitted to use any of the beloved Disney elements in his characters, including Bambi’s distinct character prototype. Consequently, it is impossible to predict how Jeffrey’s version of Bambi will look.
Frake-Waterfield has also mentioned the prospect of another dark Disney retelling in the works. The director plans to give Peter Pan a dark fantasy twist in a film titled Peter Pan: Neverland Nightmare [via The Scotsman].
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