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Disneynature is an independent
film studio
A film studio (also known as movie studio or simply studio) is a major entertainment company or motion picture company that has its own privately owned studio facility or facilities that are used to make films, which is handled by the production ...
that specializes in the production of
nature documentary
A nature documentary or wildlife documentary is a genre of documentary film or series about animals, plants, or other non-human living creatures, usually concentrating on video taken in their natural habitat but also often including footage of tr ...
films for
The Walt Disney Studios. The production company was founded on April 21, 2008, and is headquartered in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
.
The company's nature films are consistently budgeted between $5 million to $10 million, with their distribution and marketing handled by
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, formerly known as Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Inc. until 2007, is an American film distribution studio within the Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution division of The Walt Disney Company. It ha ...
.
The label's event films are released on
Earth Day
Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First held on April 22, 1970, it now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally by EarthDay.org (formerly Earth Day Network) including 1 b ...
and have a conservation campaign based on the feature of the film with an appropriate conservation charity receiving donations based on tickets sold,
at a pace of one per year.
The eight Disneynature theatrical films have a gross of $151.6 million at the box office, at an average of $19 million, with ''Earth'' the top earner at $32 million.
[
]
Background
Disney had a background in making nature films prior to the creation of Disneynature; ''Bambi
''Bambi'' is a 1942 American animated drama film directed by David Hand (supervising a team of sequence directors), produced by Walt Disney and based on the 1923 book ''Bambi, a Life in the Woods'' by Austrian author and hunter Felix Salten ...
'' (1942) featured forest life and was a hit. From 1948 through 1960, the company produced the ''True-Life Adventures
''True-Life Adventures'' is a series of short and full-length nature documentary films released by Walt Disney Productions between the years 1948 and 1960. The first seven films released were thirty-minute shorts, with the subsequent seven films ...
'' series, which won several Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
. Outside of film work, Disney parks were involved. Disneyland
Disneyland is a amusement park, theme park in Anaheim, California. Opened in 1955, it was the first theme park opened by The Walt Disney Company and the only one designed and constructed under the direct supervision of Walt Disney. Disney in ...
in 1955 opened the Jungle Cruise
Jungle Cruise, formally named Jungle River Cruise, is a riverboat amusement ride located in the Adventureland themed section at various Disney theme parks worldwide. The attraction is a simulated riverboat cruise that travels along a waterway ...
ride. Walt Disney World
The Walt Disney World Resort, also called Walt Disney World or Disney World, is an entertainment resort complex in Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista, Florida, United States, near the cities of Orlando and Kissimmee. Opened on October 1, 1971, th ...
includes Disney's Animal Kingdom
Disney's Animal Kingdom Theme Park is a zoological theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida, near Orlando. Owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Parks, Experiences and Products division, it is the l ...
, which is a theme park crossed with a zoo. Animal Kingdom has contributed to conservation causes by nursing endangered sea turtles
Worldwide, hundreds of thousands of sea turtles a year are accidentally caught in shrimp trawl nets, on longline hooks and in fishing gill-nets. Sea turtles need to reach the surface to breathe, and therefore many drown once caught. Loggerhead an ...
back to health, returning white rhinos to Africa and conducting a census of cotton-top tamarin
The cotton-top tamarin (''Saguinus oedipus'') is a small New World monkey weighing less than . This New World monkey can live up to 24 years, but most of them die by 13 years. One of the smallest primates, the cotton-top tamarin is easily recogn ...
s, a monkey species native to Colombia. In addition, since its creation in 1995, the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund has given over $11 million to 650 conservation projects in 110 countries.
After a long absence from nature documentaries, Disney decided to get back into the market after the French release of ''March of the Penguins
''March of the Penguins'' (French ''La Marche de l'empereur'' ; ) is a 2005 French feature-length nature documentary directed and co-written by Luc Jacquet, and co-produced by Bonne Pioche and the National Geographic Society. The documentary dep ...
''. The film was given U.S. distribution through Warner Independent Pictures
Warner Independent Pictures was an independent film division of the American film studio Warner Bros., itself a division of Warner Bros. Discovery, which then was known as TimeWarner. Established in August 2003, its first release was 2004's ' ...
in 2005. Made on an $8 million budget, it grossed almost 10 times its budget at the U.S. box office and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature
An academy ( Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosoph ...
in 2006. Jean-Francois Camilleri, head of Buena Vista International France at the time, had the company acquire the film for the French market. Buena Vista International France also managed to obtain a 20% ownership stake in the French version of the film. However, Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, formerly known as Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Inc. until 2007, is an American film distribution studio within the Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution division of The Walt Disney Company. It h ...
's bid to distribute the film in the U.S. ultimately failed. Disney CEO Bob Iger
Robert Allen Iger (; born February 10, 1951) is an American businessman who is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of The Walt Disney Company. He previously served as the President of ABC Television between 1994 and 1995 and the President and Ch ...
, in consideration of Disney's past efforts, felt that ''Penguins'' "should have been a Disney film worldwide". This was the impetus behind the creation of Disneynature. The film's 2007 follow-up was '' Arctic Tale'', which only took in $1.8 million worldwide. Paul Baribault, Vice President of Disney Studios Marketing, led the US efforts for Disneynature from 2008 forward, overseeing all marketing, production, brand development, and conservation programatic efforts for the label. He was eventually named General Manager of Disneynature.
History
Disneynature was announced on April 21, 2008, a day before Earth Day
Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First held on April 22, 1970, it now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally by EarthDay.org (formerly Earth Day Network) including 1 b ...
, with a starting slate of seven films. Camilleri was set to head the new division. A multi-film production agreement was made with Alastair Fothergill
Alastair David William Fothergill (born 10 April 1960) is a British producer of nature documentaries for television and cinema. He is the series producer of the series ''The Blue Planet'' (2001), ''Planet Earth'' (2006) and the co-director of ...
, BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
's ''
Planet Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surface ...
'' series producer, for three scheduled films: ''
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
'' (2009), ''
African Cats
''African Cats'' (known as ''Felines'' in France) is a 2011 nature documentary film about a pride of lions and a family of cheetahs trying to survive in the African savannah directed by Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey. The film was released ...
'' (2011) and ''
Chimpanzee
The chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes''), also known as simply the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed subspecies. When its close relative th ...
'' (2012). The other announced slate films and their release years were: ''
The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos'' (2008), ''
Oceans
The ocean (also the sea or the world ocean) is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of the surface of Earth and contains 97% of Earth's water. An ocean can also refer to any of the large bodies of water into which the worl ...
'' (2010), ''Orangutans: One Minute to Midnight'' (2010) and ''
Wings of Life'' (2011).
Original announced plans had the division releasing two films per year, which was curtailed by April 2009 due to a nature film's long period needed to film wildlife.
No decision was made at that time as to whether or not the studio would donate the films' proceeds to conservation causes.
''The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos'' was the first film produced for Disneynature. The first film released domestically under the new label was ''Earth'', opening on April 22, 2009, in the US.
In 2012, a Disneynature TV cable channel was launched in France. It is currently carried by
France Telecom
Orange S.A. (), formerly France Télécom S.A. (stylized as france telecom) is a French multinational telecommunications corporation. It has 266 million customers worldwide and employs 89,000 people in France, and 59,000 elsewhere. In 2015, ...
.
Animal Planet
Animal Planet (stylized in all lowercase since 2018) is an American multinational pay television channel owned by the Warner Bros. Discovery Networks unit of Warner Bros. Discovery. First established on June 1, 1996, the network is primarily dev ...
pick up for a two-year period three Disneynature films, ''Oceans'', ''African Cats'', and ''The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos'', in April 2012 from
Disney-ABC Domestic Television. In April 2014,
Jane Goodall
Dame Jane Morris Goodall (; born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall on 3 April 1934), formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, is an English primatologist and anthropologist. Seen as the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, Goodall is best kn ...
was named Disneynature ambassador.
Disneynature has recently expanded to China with the production of ''
Born in China
''Born in China'' (''我们诞生在中国'') is a 2016 nature documentary film directed by Lu Chuan. A co-production between Disneynature and Shanghai Media Group, the film was released in China on August 12, 2016, in the United States on April 2 ...
''. The production was made possible due to an expansion of Disney's relationship with
Shanghai Media Group
Radio and Television Station of Shanghai (RTS), a Shanghai-based state media outlet, and its wholly owned subsidiary, Shanghai Media Group (SMG), represent one of China's largest state-owned media and cultural conglomerates, with the most compl ...
starting in 2014.
Following Born in China, ''Ghost of the Mountains'' and ''Expedition China'' were released to Netflix to reflect the incredible journeys involved in creating these films. In 2016, the company released its first compilation film, ''Growing Up Wild'',
direct-to-video
Direct-to-video or straight-to-video refers to the release of a film, TV series, short or special to the public immediately on home video formats rather than an initial theatrical release or television premiere. This distribution strategy was p ...
(
Blu-ray
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...
and
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
) and video on demand.
Paul Baribault, Vice President of Studio Marketing and Disneynature, was appointed General Manager of Disneynature officially in 2018, after having been operating in the capacity for several years. Camilleri resigned his posts with Disney in March 2019. Helene Etzi was appointed to take over his responsibility as head of Disney's French operations. The unit's first streaming films for
Disney+
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment
Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and deligh ...
was ''
Dolphin Reef
Dolphin Reef is a horseshoe-shaped sea-pen where bottlenose dolphins in the Gulf of Eilat in the northern-eastern Red Sea near the city of Eilat in southern Israel swim in and out of. It is a major tourist attraction in this area.
History
Th ...
'' and ''
Elephant
Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae an ...
''.
Filmography
Notes
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
2008 establishments in France
Companies based in Paris
Companies based in Burbank, California
Disney production studios
Film production companies of the United States
Film production companies of France
Mass media companies established in 2008
Walt Disney Studios (division)
The Walt Disney Company subsidiaries