Disney and Nat Geo Unveil New Lion Series After Decades of Nature Storytelling
Walt Disney's fascination with nature started on his family farm in Marceline, Missouri. He spent his childhood observing insects and animals, an early habit he called 'belly botany.' As an adult, this curiosity led to some groundbreaking storytelling. During the development of Bambi in the late 1930s, Disney sent artist Jake Day into the Maine woods to gather reference footage.
The True-Life Adventure series was born a few years later. Around World War II, Disney hired married cinematographers Alfred and Elma Milotte to document local wildlife and Inuit culture in the Alaska Territory. They returned with striking footage of seals that so excited Disney he shelved the original project and built a short film around it instead.
The first True-Life Adventure was Seal Island. It won an Academy Award, paving the way for 13 more in the series, eight of which would also win Oscars. This partnership between Disney and National Geographic predates the phrase 'nature documentary.'
Today, their approach remains unchanged: letting real behavior dictate the narrative rather than scripting one in advance. Lion's production spent four years tracking a pride in Kenya's Maasai Mara. It's the first natural history production to document a lion's complete journey from vulnerable cub to king.