Disney launching nature-film unit

Walt Disney Co., the latest entertainment company to hop on corporate America’s green bandwagon, is launching a new film production unit called Disneynature to make feature-length documentaries about animals and the environment.

The endeavor, inspired by the success of Warner Independent Pictures’ 2005 hit documentary “March of The Penguins,” is in keeping with Disney’s strategy to produce low-cost movies aimed at family audiences. “Penguins” cost about $8 million to produce and grossed nearly 10 times that at the U.S. box office.

“After that came out, a lightbulb went off and we said that should have been a Disney film worldwide,” said Disney’s chief executive, Bob Iger. “That’s part of the Disney heritage.”

The new unit marks a return to Disney’s onetime tradition of making nature films. From 1948 through 1960, the studio produced a 13-film series “True-Life Adventures,” eight of which won Academy Awards.

Under the new initiative, each film is expected to cost $5 million to $10 million and will be marketed and distributed through Disney’s mainstream movie operation. Although the production budgets are much less than a typical feature film, payoffs are hardly assured. “Arctic Tale,” the follow-up to “Penguins,” released in 2007, grossed $1.8 million worldwide.

In a presentation at Disney’s Burbank headquarters, Iger and Walt Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook announced and screened snippets from the new label’s initial slate of seven films.

The first U.S. release, “Earth,” is set to debut April 22, 2009 – Earth Day.

The 90-minute movie, based on the award winning BBC and Discovery Channel series “Planet Earth,” will chronicle a year in the life of the planet. It will be narrated by James Earl Jones.

“The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos” is scheduled for international rollout in December 2008 but will open in the U.S. later.