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Disney's Going Green
by Rich Thomaselli
House of Mouse starts Disneynature film company to focus on the real world
Disney just can't wait to be king... of nature flicks.
The Walt Disney Co. has launched a new film-production unit that will produce feature-length documentaries on animals and the environment.
The new venture, called Disneynature, pays homage to the Disney Co. of an earlier era, when its film division produced 13 movies under the banner of “True-Life Adventures” between 1948 and 1960. Eight of the films, including Seal Island, won Academy Awards.
The formation of Disneynature was inspired by that series, as well as Disney president-CEO Robert Iger’s admiration for the 2005 documentary March of the Penguins, produced by Warner Independent Pictures. The film, narrated by Morgan Freeman, was made for less than $10 million and grossed more than $120 million in theaters.
“After that came out, a light bulb went off, and we said, 'That should have been a Disney film worldwide,'" Iger told the Los Angeles Times. “That's part of the Disney heritage.”
Disneynature hopes to build off the Penguins model by producing films that cost between $5 million and $10 million, and then let the vaunted Disney marketing machine take over. The company plans to hype each film through its various businesses (it is the parent company of television networks ABC and ESPN), publications, licensing, and, of course, its theme parks.
Disneynature will be based in France, where Jean-François Camilleri, who has served as senior vice president and general manager for Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures France, will head the new unit.
“We are placing the legacy of Disney's "True-Life Adventures" in the hands of great modern filmmakers using dazzling technology,” Iger said in a statement announcing the venture. “Disneynature is a concept we look forward to building across the company and across the globe for years to come. And, we hope these films will contribute to a greater understanding and appreciation of the beauty and fragility of our natural world.”
Disneynature has seven films in production or development, all to be released by 2012, and the first will be an adaption of the critically acclaimed BCC/Discovery Channel series Planet Earth. Narrated by James Earl Jones and directed by Alastair Fothergill, Planet Earth will be released on April 22, 2009, Earth Day.
Other projects, according to The Hollywood Reporter, include:
• The Crimsom Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos, a film to be shot on the shores of Lake Natron in northern Tanzania chronicling the life of flamingos.
• Oceans, which promises to use new techology to take an even larger look at the most dominant substance on earth — water.
• Orangutans: One Minute to Midnight will focus on brother-sister orangutans who are looking for a new home and family.
• Big Cats will follow a lioness, a leopard, and a cheetah on their journey over the African plains.
• Naked Beauty: A Love Story That Feeds the Earth will tell the story of the intertwined existence between flowers and those that pollinate them — a bat, a hummingbird, a butterfly, and a bumblebee.
• Chimpanzee, an intimate look at the world of these humanlike creatures.
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3 Answers
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National Geographic Magazine
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Animal Planet
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Discovery Channel
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Museums
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The Zoo
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The news
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Al Gore
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| Also National Geographic TV channel.
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