For the past several years it’s been a bit of a Hollywood trend for beloved cartoons and animated films to get the live-action treatment. Disney in particular has been keen on these adaptations, the most recent of which was 2025’s Lilo & Stitch and Moana is headed into theaters in July. But Disney isn’t the only studio getting in on the live action. Universal did it last year with How to Train Your Dragon and now, it looks like Amazon MGM Studios is going to as well — but the beloved animated classic they’re taking on already has fans making big jokes about the project.
According to Variety, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and Nightbitch filmmaker Marielle Heller is writing and directing a live-action adaptation of FernGully. The project is currently in the development stage, but not only are fans of the original already questioning whether FernGully is a film that can really be adapted for live-action, but the jokes about the project pretty much write themselves with fans noting that not only does a movie with a similar premise already exist, but that movie was already joked about being a “live-action FernGully” — Avatar.
There are Big Plans for FernGully (And Big Challenges)
Adapting FernGully: The Last Rainforest in live action is likely to be a big challenge on a few fronts. Directed by Bill Kroyer, the original FernGully told the story of Crysta (voiced by Samantha Mathis), a fairy in the Australian rainforest who has never seen or encountered human beings before. But when a logging company comes to the forest, she encounters a human named Zak (Jonathan Ward) who inadvertently ends up shrunken to fairy size. Able to see the forest from the perspective of those within it, Zak realizes the terrible damage that human beings are inflicting upon the rainforest with their logging efforts, prompting Zak and Crysta to team up to rally the rest of the fairies — and a silly, chatty bat named Batty (Robin Williams) in an effort to protect the rainforest. There’s also an evil entity named Hexxus who feeds and thrives off of pollution that’s voiced by Tim Curry. It’s a magical film with sweeping visuals and an important message about saving nature and has long been a beloved classic.
Given the film’s beloved status, there’s the inherent challenge of getting things right, which will be a tall order. Williams’ Batty is one of the most iconic characters in animation and it’s something that any adaptation will need to work hard to get just right. There’s also the question of whether this is a story that can be properly done in live action without needing a massive budget and to a level that fans would even be interested given the existence of James Cameron’s Avatar franchise and for very good reason. While Avatar has gone on to be a box office hit with a major franchise, when it was initially released in 2009, the film was met with some backlash that its story copied that of FernGully in terms of thematic and plot elements. It led to Avatar jokingly being called the “live-action FernGully”. Now that there is actually going to be a live-action FernGully, fans are now wondering why one needs to even be attempted, considering that we’ve seen what a live-action version of a similar story looks like. As has been repeated on social media frequently since the announcement, “a live-action FernGully exists; it’s called Avatar.”
Despite the high level of expectation, it sounds like the live-action FernGully is just the beginning of plans for it. Producer Jon Sheinberg explained in a statement that they want to expand the movie into music, merch, games, and so much more.
“Our goal isn’t simply to make a new film,” he said. “It’s to honor a timeless classic and extend its powerful themes and musical legacy across every platform.”
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