There’s a lot of gold in the “Production” section of the Bambi article on Wikipedia.
Sidney Franklin, a producer and director at MGM films, purchased the film rights to Felix Salten’s novel Bambi, A Life in the Woods in 1933, intending to adapt it as a live-action film. Deciding it would be too difficult to make such a film, he sold the film rights to Walt Disney in April 1937.
I can’t possibly fathom why this wouldn’t work as a live-action film!
There was a scene involving two autumn leaves conversing and eventually dying by falling to the ground, but the artist found that talking flora didn’t work in the context of the film and instead used a visual metaphor of two realistic leaves falling to the ground.
Screenwriters what were you on, dogs. Why would that have been a good idea.
There was a scene of Bambi stepping on an ant’s nest and showing all the devastation that he caused, but it was cut for pacing reasons.
Yes, it was cut because it threw off the film’s timing. Not because an ant massacre might not be appropriate for a movie like Bambi. No siree bob.