Earth in DVD

This film supplied the American launch of the Disneynature production banner that harks back to Walt's line. Looking at a year in the lives of various creatures, this documentary employs footage shot for the BBC's award-winning "Planet Earth" series by writer-producer Alastair Fothergill.

Voiceover god James Earl Jones has narrated the picture, a task originally assigned to Patrick Stewart. Thanks to the power of promotion (and Disney's promise to plant a tree for every first-week ticket sold), Earth easily became the second highest-grossing nature documentary of all-time behind surprise 2005 blockbuster March of the Penguins and the third most-attended of any documentary (Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 remains #1).

The Disneynature brand already has half a dozen other projects in the works, including Oceans (Earth Day 2010), The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos (which opened 2008 in France), Orangutans (2010), and the much-anticipated Big Cats (2011). Earth will come to DVD and a Blu-ray/DVD Combo on September 1st.