Disney wildlife films set to be a success at the cinema

Films featuring stories from the natural world will soon hit the big screen, starting with The Crimson Wing, a lyrical study of flamingos living on Lake Natron in Northern Tanzania, commissioned by Disneynature. The company is a newly formed branch of the mighty Walt Disney who have commissioned a number of films featuring the beauty of the natural world which will be released over the next five years.

The Crimson Wing is directed by British-born filmmakers Matthew Aeberhard and Leander Ward, “We always wanted it to be a big screen film,” says Aeberhard. “You could spend an enormous amount of time developing a project for television, so why not develop one for the big screen? We wanted it to be a project that people could experience in a way you can’t experience on a small television. We felt nature deserves more than that. It’s something intrinsically beautiful and the big screen supports that. It helps give one the feeling that they could be there.”

Following The Crimson Wing, Oceans, a sub-aquatic adventure  will be unveiled early next year. Then, in 2011 comes Naked Beauty. “It’s about the job that pollinators – bees, hummingbirds, bats, butterflies – do to help flowers produce and create what we need to survive,” says Camilleri. Then comes African Cats, currently being shot in Kenya, and in 2013, Earth co-directors Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield will present Chimpanzee.

The popularity of feature length wildlife films seems to originate from French films such as The Bear released in 1988, Microcosmos (1996) and the March of the Penguins which took $77 million in the US in 2005. Read more