Bambi 2 is trending…
Does this mean Disney is making a sequel…
or something else?
As of 0900 Eastern Standard Time (EST), 28 Jan 2020, the hashtag Bambi 2 was trending. According to Trends24 the Hashtag began trending about 0400 EST on 28 Jan. What is this?! Bambi 2!! Is Disney getting ready to make a sequel to the animated classic? My wife and I are big Disney fans and this news was exciting so I did some digging to see what was going on with this trend. As I looked at the Tweets, I learned a couple of things…
The first one really surprised me. Bambi 2 is already a movie (maybe I am not as big a Disney fan as I thought…). IMDB shows that the direct to video movie was released in 2006. The story is about the time when Bambi (voiced by Alexander Gould) was being raised by his father (voiced by Sir Patrick Stewart). The movie is available on Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video. It looks like I have something to watch with my wife this weekend.
The second surprise, although it shouldn’t be, is that Disney may be planning a live-action version of the original. The company’s tendency toward remaking animated movies into live-action over the past decade or so shows this may be true. With the success of other live-action movies like Cinderella, The Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast, Dumbo, Aladdin, The Lion King and so on, why wouldn’t they try their luck with one of the oldest movies they have? The original Bambi was released as Disney’s fifth film in 1942 (IMDB, 2018) and could make a serious return as a live-action film. This can be somewhat confirmed by an article from the Hollywood Reporter that came out four days ago stating that writers have been hired by Disney to start the screenplay (Kit & Galuppo, 2020). This directly plays into the trending of the hashtag that has minimal usage before Jan 24, 2020.
Disney is a master of marketing (Davis, 2017) and it would not surprise me if they used some back-channel means to have social media influencers drop the hashtag #Bambi 2 to start a buzz on the internet about the movie. This could be to see how people react so they can judge the audience before investing too much time and money. Knowing Disney, either way, I am sure they have some staff somewhere keeping an eye on the trend.
Myself, I will remain cautiously optimistic about the movie. I am not a ‘huge’ fan of the live-actions as compared to the originals, but I do like them. Only time will tell. In the meantime, if you want a laugh, there is always the SNL skit with “The Rock” as Bambi in a parody of Disney’s live-action movies…
References:
IMDB. (2018). Walt Disney Animated Films (1937-present). Retrieved on 28 Jan 2020 from https://www.imdb.com/list/ls059383351/
Kit, B. & Galuppo, M. (2020). ‘Bambi’ Remake in the Works With ‘Captain Marvel’, ‘Chaos Walking’ Writers (Exclusive). Retrieved from https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/bambi-remake-works-1272457
James W Baker 