Remember those old Disney nature movies? I think they were called True Life Adventures, and would often feature a narrator talking over footage shot out in the desert or on a mountain or wherever. They were actually pretty cool and very ahead of their time in terms of showing us the natural world. Of course, as a kid, I was like “what the hell, where’s Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck,” but I was kind of a stupid kid, frankly. Anyway, Disney is getting back on the natural world bandwagon with a new production entity, Disneynature.
The Disneynature unit will be located at the Walt Disney Studio in France. They have also announced their first project, a documentary which has the clever title of Earth. The film will be narrated by Darth Vader himself, James Earl Jones, and is from producer/director Alastair Fothergill. I know that sounds like a made up name, like Percy Longbottomshire, but it’s not. Fothergill previously directed the BBC and Discovery Channel epic nature documentary, Planet Earth.
In a move of marketing synergy brilliance, Disneynature will release Earth in theaters on April 22, 2009. Hey, that’s Earth Day! Fothergill feels that a nature documentary from Disney just makes sense. He said; “This is especially exciting because, thanks to the wide-ranging appeal of Disney, we can expect Earth to be seen by the broadest possible audience. Disney has been an inspiration to wildlife documentarians for generations and it's a genuine thrill to advance this extraordinary legacy under this new label." I’m looking forward to see Planet Earth, which is on the lower reaches of my Netflix queue and I’m sure Earth will eventually make it’s way into my house on Blu-ray sometime next decade.
