Another Earth Day has come and gone. But if you’re thinking of celebrating this week by heading to the theater to see this year’s Earth Day-inspired nature documentary forget about it. Neither Disney nor IMAX is releasing a 2013 Earth Day film.
The Earth Day nature movie tradition was started by Disneynature in 2009 (“Earth”), and every year since the studio has produced another impressive documentary and released it in April to tie-in with the annual Green holiday. And they’ve all done pretty well at the box office, highlighted by 2012’s “Chimpanzee”, which has raked-in nearly $30-million worldwide. And the educational and fund-raising campaigns associated with “Chimpanzee” were highly successful.
You may remember back in 2011 there were actually TWO Earth Day films: Disneynature’s “African Cats” and “Born to Be Wild 3D” from IMAX. Both did quite well at the box office. Plus IMAX produced “To the Artic 3D” last year and it had a limited April release.
This year? Nothing. Disneynature did release “Wings of Life”, a 2011 film directed by Louis Schwartzberg and narrated by Meryl Streep, in a handful of cities last week and then sent it straight to Blu-ray/DVD. I still don’t understand this decision, as the film is getting good reviews and these nature docs, because their extraordinary cinematography, need to be seen on the big screen.
Disneynature is expected to get back in the spirit of Earth Day with “Bears” next April. Still, it’s too bad the studio couldn’t keep the tradition alive this year for all the fans who have grown to appreciate this new genre and want to watch these films in theaters.