Earth (2007 film)
Encyclopedia
Earth is a 2007 nature documentary
film which depicts the diversity of wild habitats and creatures across the planet. The film begins in the Arctic
in January of one year and moves south, finishing in Antarctica in the December of the same year. Along the way, it features the journeys made by three particular species, the polar bear
, African bush elephant
and humpback whale
, to highlight the threats to their survival in the face of rapid environmental change
. A companion piece to the 2006 BBC
/Discovery
/NHK
television series Planet Earth
, the film uses many of the same sequences, though most are edited differently and there is some previously unseen footage.
Earth was co-directed by Alastair Fothergill
, the executive producer of the television series, and Mark Linfield
, the producer of Planet Earths "From Pole to Pole" and "Seasonal Forests" episodes. It was co-produced by BBC Worldwide
and Greenlight Media AG, with Discovery and NHK providing some of the funding. The same organisations collaborated on Fothergill's previous film, Deep Blue (2003), itself a companion to his 2001 television series on the natural history of the world's oceans, The Blue Planet
. The British version of Earth was narrated by Patrick Stewart
and the US version was narrated by James Earl Jones
.
Earth was released in cinemas internationally during the final quarter of 2007 and throughout 2008. In the United States, it became the first film released under the Disneynature
banner on 22 April 2009, which is Earth Day
. With total worldwide box office revenue exceeding $
100 million, Earth is the second-highest grossing nature documentary of all time.
in January to the South
in December, revealing how plants and animals respond to the power of the sun and the changing seasons. The film focuses on three particular species, the polar bear
, African bush elephant
and humpback whale
.
Starting in the high Arctic
in January, as the darkness of winter gives way to the sun, a mother polar bear is shown emerging from her den with two new cubs. She needs food and must lead her cubs to her hunting ground on the sea ice
before it begins to break up. By April, the sun never sets, and by August all the sea ice has melted. The mother and cubs have retreated to dry land, but a male polar bear is trapped at sea and must seek out land by swimming. He reaches an island with a walrus
colony but is too exhausted to make a successful kill. He dies from injuries sustained in a walrus attack.
African bush elephants are filmed from the air as they negotiate a dust storm
in the Kalahari Desert
. June is the dry season and they must follow ancient paths passed down through generations to reach watering holes. A mother and calf are separated from the herd in the storm but manage to reach shelter. The matriarch leads the herd to a temporary watering hole, but they must share it with hungry lion
s and scavenger White-backed Vulture
s. The lions are shown attacking a solitary elephant at night, when their superior vision gives them the upper hand. The herd times its arrival at the Okavango Delta
to coincide with seasonal floodwaters which transform the desert into a lush water world.
A humpback whale mother and calf are filmed from the air and underwater at their breeding grounds in the shallow seas of the tropics
. There is nothing here for the mother to eat, so she must guide her calf on a 4000 miles (6,437.4 km) journey south to the rich feeding grounds near Antarctica, the longest migration of any marine mammal. En route, they negotiate dangerous seas where great white shark
s are filmed breaching as they hunt. Sealions, and sailfish
and dolphin
s combine to bait a shoal of small fish. By October they enter polar waters, and by December the Antarctic sun has melted the sea ice to form sheltered bays. Here, the whales are shown feeding on krill
by trapping them in bubble nets.
The stories of these individual creatures are woven into the film alongside a great many additional scenes. The supporting cast of animals include mandarin duck
lings filmed jumping from their tree hole nest, Arctic wolves
hunting caribou, cheetah
hunting Thomson's gazelle
, elephants charge at White-backed Vulture
, birds of paradise displaying in the New Guinea
rainforest
, Adelie Penguins in the Antarctic and demoiselle crane
s on their autumn migration across the Himalayas.
Time-lapse photography is used to show the blossoming of spring flowers, seasonal changes to deciduous forests, clouds sweeping up Himalayan valleys and the growth of jungle spore
s and fungi.
. The three species it features are used to illustrate particular threats to the planet's wildlife. In the Arctic, rising temperatures are causing a greater area of sea ice to melt and threatening the polar bear with extinction
as early as 2030. Global warming
is also disrupting the planet's weather systems and making seasonal rainfall patterns less predictable. This poses a threat to creatures like elephants, which must travel greater distances to reach water. Rising ocean temperatures have started to kill the plankton
on which humpback whales and most other sea life depend. The film ends with the message that "it's not too late to make a difference."
at Spain's San Sebastian International Film Festival
in September 2007. It was released across Europe in the fourth quarter of 2007 and early 2008 to much success. In April 2008, it was announced that Earth would be the first feature distributed by Disneynature, a newly-formed subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company's Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group specializing in natural history documentaries. The film was released in the US on April 22, 2009, with James Earl Jones
narrating in place of Patrick Stewart
. Disneynature also handled distribution in Canada and Latin American countries.
reported that 85% of critics gave the film positive reviews based on 80 reviews, the highest score of all the Disneynature films, with an average score of 7.1 out of 10. Its consensus stated: "With its spectacular and extensive footage, Earth is both informative and entertaining." Among Rotten Tomatoes' "Top Critics" demographic, the film holds an overall positive approval rating of 85% based on 20 reviews. Another review aggregator, Metacritic
, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, gave an average score of 72, being a generally favorable review, based on 26 reviews.
Earth picked up an additional $76,931,115 at the international box office. It took over $30 million in Germany alone, became one of the three highest-grossing films of the year in France and had the best opening of any natural history documentary in Spain. By contrast, in the UK Earth debuted on just 14 screens and amassed less than £
75,000 in ticket sales.
In January 2008, the Japanese version of Earth, narrated by actor Ken Watanabe
, knocked Hollywood blockbuster I Am Legend
off the top of the box office despite opening on half the number of screens. It went on to gross more than 2 billion yen ($18.5 million), making it the most successful documentary there of the last 10 years.
Its worldwide total of $108,942,691 made Earth a commercial success and placed it second on the all-time list of highest-grossing nature documentaries, behind March of the Penguins
.
Nature documentary
A natural history film or wildlife film is a documentary film about animals, plants, or other non-human living creatures, usually concentrating on film taken in their natural habitat...
film which depicts the diversity of wild habitats and creatures across the planet. The film begins in the Arctic
Arctic
The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...
in January of one year and moves south, finishing in Antarctica in the December of the same year. Along the way, it features the journeys made by three particular species, the polar bear
Polar Bear
The polar bear is a bear native largely within the Arctic Circle encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is the world's largest land carnivore and also the largest bear, together with the omnivorous Kodiak Bear, which is approximately the same size...
, African bush elephant
African Bush Elephant
The African Bush Elephant or African Savanna Elephant is the larger of the two species of African elephant. Both it and the African Forest Elephant have usually been classified as a single species, known simply as the African Elephant...
and humpback whale
Humpback Whale
The humpback whale is a species of baleen whale. One of the larger rorqual species, adults range in length from and weigh approximately . The humpback has a distinctive body shape, with unusually long pectoral fins and a knobbly head. It is an acrobatic animal, often breaching and slapping the...
, to highlight the threats to their survival in the face of rapid environmental change
Environmental change
Environmental change is defined as a change or disturbance of the environment by natural ecological processes, and is described in the following articles:*Climate change*Environment...
. A companion piece to the 2006 BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
/Discovery
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
/NHK
NHK
NHK is Japan's national public broadcasting organization. NHK, which has always identified itself to its audiences by the English pronunciation of its initials, is a publicly owned corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee....
television series Planet Earth
Planet Earth (TV series)
Planet Earth is a 2006 television series produced by the BBC Natural History Unit. Five years in the making, it was the most expensive nature documentary series ever commissioned by the BBC, and also the first to be filmed in high definition...
, the film uses many of the same sequences, though most are edited differently and there is some previously unseen footage.
Earth was co-directed by Alastair Fothergill
Alastair Fothergill
Alastair Fothergill is a producer of nature documentaries for television and cinema. He is the executive producer of the multi-award winning series The Blue Planet and Planet Earth and the co-director of the associated feature films Deep Blue and Earth.Fothergill attended Harrow...
, the executive producer of the television series, and Mark Linfield
Mark Linfield
Mark Linfield is a British writer, producer and director of nature documentaries for cinema and television. He is best known for his work with the BBC Natural History Unit as a producer of two episodes of the television series Planet Earth and as writer and co-director of the associated feature...
, the producer of Planet Earths "From Pole to Pole" and "Seasonal Forests" episodes. It was co-produced by BBC Worldwide
BBC Worldwide
BBC Worldwide Limited is the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in 1995. In the year to 31 March 2010 it made a profit of £145m on a turnover of £1.074bn. The company had made a profit of £106m...
and Greenlight Media AG, with Discovery and NHK providing some of the funding. The same organisations collaborated on Fothergill's previous film, Deep Blue (2003), itself a companion to his 2001 television series on the natural history of the world's oceans, The Blue Planet
The Blue Planet
The Blue Planet is a BBC nature documentary series narrated by David Attenborough, first transmitted in the UK from 12 September 2001.Described as "the first ever comprehensive series on the natural history of the world's oceans", each of the eight 50-minute episodes examines a different aspect of...
. The British version of Earth was narrated by Patrick Stewart
Patrick Stewart
Sir Patrick Hewes Stewart, OBE is an English film, television and stage actor, who has had a distinguished career in theatre and television for around half a century...
and the US version was narrated by James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones is an American actor. He is well-known for his distinctive bass voice and for his portrayal of characters of substance, gravitas and leadership...
.
Earth was released in cinemas internationally during the final quarter of 2007 and throughout 2008. In the United States, it became the first film released under the Disneynature
Disneynature
Disneynature is an independent film label of The Walt Disney Company, founded on April 21, 2008 as a division of the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group...
banner on 22 April 2009, which is Earth Day
Earth Day
Earth Day is a day that is intended to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's natural environment. The name and concept of Earth Day was allegedly pioneered by John McConnell in 1969 at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco. The first Proclamation of Earth Day was by San Francisco, the...
. With total worldwide box office revenue exceeding $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
100 million, Earth is the second-highest grossing nature documentary of all time.
Synopsis
Over the course of a calendar year, Earth takes the viewer on a journey from the North PoleNorth Pole
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is, subject to the caveats explained below, defined as the point in the northern hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface...
in January to the South
South Pole
The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole or Terrestrial South Pole, is one of the two points where the Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on the surface of the Earth and lies on the opposite side of the Earth from the North Pole...
in December, revealing how plants and animals respond to the power of the sun and the changing seasons. The film focuses on three particular species, the polar bear
Polar Bear
The polar bear is a bear native largely within the Arctic Circle encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is the world's largest land carnivore and also the largest bear, together with the omnivorous Kodiak Bear, which is approximately the same size...
, African bush elephant
African Bush Elephant
The African Bush Elephant or African Savanna Elephant is the larger of the two species of African elephant. Both it and the African Forest Elephant have usually been classified as a single species, known simply as the African Elephant...
and humpback whale
Humpback Whale
The humpback whale is a species of baleen whale. One of the larger rorqual species, adults range in length from and weigh approximately . The humpback has a distinctive body shape, with unusually long pectoral fins and a knobbly head. It is an acrobatic animal, often breaching and slapping the...
.
Starting in the high Arctic
Arctic
The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...
in January, as the darkness of winter gives way to the sun, a mother polar bear is shown emerging from her den with two new cubs. She needs food and must lead her cubs to her hunting ground on the sea ice
Sea ice
Sea ice is largely formed from seawater that freezes. Because the oceans consist of saltwater, this occurs below the freezing point of pure water, at about -1.8 °C ....
before it begins to break up. By April, the sun never sets, and by August all the sea ice has melted. The mother and cubs have retreated to dry land, but a male polar bear is trapped at sea and must seek out land by swimming. He reaches an island with a walrus
Walrus
The walrus is a large flippered marine mammal with a discontinuous circumpolar distribution in the Arctic Ocean and sub-Arctic seas of the Northern Hemisphere. The walrus is the only living species in the Odobenidae family and Odobenus genus. It is subdivided into three subspecies: the Atlantic...
colony but is too exhausted to make a successful kill. He dies from injuries sustained in a walrus attack.
African bush elephants are filmed from the air as they negotiate a dust storm
Dust storm
A dust / sand storm is a meteorological phenomenon common in arid and semi-arid regions. Dust storms arise when a gust front or other strong wind blows loose sand and dirt from a dry surface. Particles are transported by saltation and suspension, causing soil to move from one place and deposition...
in the Kalahari Desert
Kalahari Desert
The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savannah in Southern Africa extending , covering much of Botswana and parts of Namibia and South Africa, as semi-desert, with huge tracts of excellent grazing after good rains. The Kalahari supports more animals and plants than a true desert...
. June is the dry season and they must follow ancient paths passed down through generations to reach watering holes. A mother and calf are separated from the herd in the storm but manage to reach shelter. The matriarch leads the herd to a temporary watering hole, but they must share it with hungry lion
Lion
The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...
s and scavenger White-backed Vulture
White-backed Vulture
The White-backed Vulture is an Old World vulture in the family Accipitridae, which also includes eagles, kites, buzzards and hawks. It is closely related to the European Griffon Vulture, G. fulvus...
s. The lions are shown attacking a solitary elephant at night, when their superior vision gives them the upper hand. The herd times its arrival at the Okavango Delta
Okavango Delta
The Okavango Delta , in Botswana, is the world's largest inland delta. It is formed where the Okavango River empties onto a swamp in an endorheic basin in the Kalahari Desert, where most of the water is lost to evaporation and transpiration instead of draining into the sea...
to coincide with seasonal floodwaters which transform the desert into a lush water world.
A humpback whale mother and calf are filmed from the air and underwater at their breeding grounds in the shallow seas of the tropics
Tropics
The tropics is a region of the Earth surrounding the Equator. It is limited in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere at approximately N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere at S; these latitudes correspond to the axial tilt of the Earth...
. There is nothing here for the mother to eat, so she must guide her calf on a 4000 miles (6,437.4 km) journey south to the rich feeding grounds near Antarctica, the longest migration of any marine mammal. En route, they negotiate dangerous seas where great white shark
Great white shark
The great white shark, scientific name Carcharodon carcharias, also known as the great white, white pointer, white shark, or white death, is a large lamniform shark found in coastal surface waters in all major oceans. It is known for its size, with the largest individuals known to have approached...
s are filmed breaching as they hunt. Sealions, and sailfish
Sailfish
'Sailfish' are two species of fish in the genus Istiophorus, living in warmer sections of all the oceans of the world. They are predominately blue to gray in color and have a characteristic erectile dorsal fin known as a sail, which often stretches the entire length of the back...
and dolphin
Dolphin
Dolphins are marine mammals that are closely related to whales and porpoises. There are almost forty species of dolphin in 17 genera. They vary in size from and , up to and . They are found worldwide, mostly in the shallower seas of the continental shelves, and are carnivores, mostly eating...
s combine to bait a shoal of small fish. By October they enter polar waters, and by December the Antarctic sun has melted the sea ice to form sheltered bays. Here, the whales are shown feeding on krill
Krill
Krill is the common name given to the order Euphausiacea of shrimp-like marine crustaceans. Also known as euphausiids, these small invertebrates are found in all oceans of the world...
by trapping them in bubble nets.
The stories of these individual creatures are woven into the film alongside a great many additional scenes. The supporting cast of animals include mandarin duck
Mandarin Duck
The Mandarin Duck , or just Mandarin, is a medium-sized perching duck, closely related to the North American Wood Duck. It is 41–49 cm long with a 65–75 cm wingspan.-Description:...
lings filmed jumping from their tree hole nest, Arctic wolves
Arctic Wolf
The Arctic Wolf , also called Polar Wolf or White Wolf, is a subspecies of the Gray Wolf, a mammal of the family Canidae. Arctic Wolves inhabit the Canadian Arctic, Alaska and the northern parts of Greenland....
hunting caribou, cheetah
Cheetah
The cheetah is a large-sized feline inhabiting most of Africa and parts of the Middle East. The cheetah is the only extant member of the genus Acinonyx, most notable for modifications in the species' paws...
hunting Thomson's gazelle
Thomson's Gazelle
The Thomson's gazelle is one of the best-known gazelles. It is named after explorer Joseph Thomson and, as a result, is sometimes referred to as a "tommie"...
, elephants charge at White-backed Vulture
White-backed Vulture
The White-backed Vulture is an Old World vulture in the family Accipitridae, which also includes eagles, kites, buzzards and hawks. It is closely related to the European Griffon Vulture, G. fulvus...
, birds of paradise displaying in the New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
rainforest
Rainforest
Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...
, Adelie Penguins in the Antarctic and demoiselle crane
Demoiselle Crane
The Demoiselle Crane, Anthropoides virgo, is a species of crane that breeds in Central Asia and winters in India, with a few found in Cyprus and eastern Turkey as well. The crane annually migrates to Africa and South Asia in winter...
s on their autumn migration across the Himalayas.
Time-lapse photography is used to show the blossoming of spring flowers, seasonal changes to deciduous forests, clouds sweeping up Himalayan valleys and the growth of jungle spore
Spore
In biology, a spore is a reproductive structure that is adapted for dispersal and surviving for extended periods of time in unfavorable conditions. Spores form part of the life cycles of many bacteria, plants, algae, fungi and some protozoa. According to scientist Dr...
s and fungi.
Themes
The narration is woven around the theme of anthropogenic environmental changeEnvironmental change
Environmental change is defined as a change or disturbance of the environment by natural ecological processes, and is described in the following articles:*Climate change*Environment...
. The three species it features are used to illustrate particular threats to the planet's wildlife. In the Arctic, rising temperatures are causing a greater area of sea ice to melt and threatening the polar bear with extinction
Extinction
In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...
as early as 2030. Global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
is also disrupting the planet's weather systems and making seasonal rainfall patterns less predictable. This poses a threat to creatures like elephants, which must travel greater distances to reach water. Rising ocean temperatures have started to kill the plankton
Plankton
Plankton are any drifting organisms that inhabit the pelagic zone of oceans, seas, or bodies of fresh water. That is, plankton are defined by their ecological niche rather than phylogenetic or taxonomic classification...
on which humpback whales and most other sea life depend. The film ends with the message that "it's not too late to make a difference."
Production
Earth was produced by Alix Tidmarsh of BBC Worldwide and Sophokles Tasioulis of Greenlight Media. Following Deep Blue, it is the second film of a five-picture deal between the two companies. The process of bringing Planet Earth and Earth to the screen took over 5 years. With a combined budget of $47 million, $15 million of which was earmarked for the film, it represented the most expensive production in the history of documentary filmmaking. Principal photography began in 2004 and was completed in 2006.Release
Earth received its global premierePremiere
A premiere is generally "a first performance". This can refer to plays, films, television programs, operas, symphonies, ballets and so on. Premieres for theatrical, musical and other cultural presentations can become extravagant affairs, attracting large numbers of socialites and much media...
at Spain's San Sebastian International Film Festival
San Sebastián International Film Festival
The San Sebastián International Film Festival is an annual FIAPF A category film festival held in the Spanish city of San Sebastián .-History:The festival was founded in 1953...
in September 2007. It was released across Europe in the fourth quarter of 2007 and early 2008 to much success. In April 2008, it was announced that Earth would be the first feature distributed by Disneynature, a newly-formed subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company's Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group specializing in natural history documentaries. The film was released in the US on April 22, 2009, with James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones is an American actor. He is well-known for his distinctive bass voice and for his portrayal of characters of substance, gravitas and leadership...
narrating in place of Patrick Stewart
Patrick Stewart
Sir Patrick Hewes Stewart, OBE is an English film, television and stage actor, who has had a distinguished career in theatre and television for around half a century...
. Disneynature also handled distribution in Canada and Latin American countries.
Reception
Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reported that 85% of critics gave the film positive reviews based on 80 reviews, the highest score of all the Disneynature films, with an average score of 7.1 out of 10. Its consensus stated: "With its spectacular and extensive footage, Earth is both informative and entertaining." Among Rotten Tomatoes' "Top Critics" demographic, the film holds an overall positive approval rating of 85% based on 20 reviews. Another review aggregator, Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, gave an average score of 72, being a generally favorable review, based on 26 reviews.
Box Office
On its first day of release in the US, Earth opened at #1, grossing $4,023,788 from 1,810 theaters. For its first weekend, it opened at #5, grossing $8,825,760, as well as $14,472,792 over the five-day period. Despite dropping to #7 the next weekend, taking in $4,340,235, it took in $12,017,017 over the previous week (including Sunday), and ending up with a two-week total of $22,004,284. It closed on July 30, 2009 after 100 days of release, ending up with a final gross of $32,011,576, making it a modest success in the US.Earth picked up an additional $76,931,115 at the international box office. It took over $30 million in Germany alone, became one of the three highest-grossing films of the year in France and had the best opening of any natural history documentary in Spain. By contrast, in the UK Earth debuted on just 14 screens and amassed less than £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
75,000 in ticket sales.
In January 2008, the Japanese version of Earth, narrated by actor Ken Watanabe
Ken Watanabe
is a Japanese stage, film, and television actor. To English-speaking audiences he is known for playing tragic hero characters, such as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi in Letters from Iwo Jima and Lord Katsumoto Moritsugu in The Last Samurai, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best...
, knocked Hollywood blockbuster I Am Legend
I Am Legend (film)
I Am Legend is a 2007 post-apocalyptic science fiction film directed by Francis Lawrence and starring Will Smith. It is the third feature film adaptation of Richard Matheson's 1954 novel of the same name, following 1964's The Last Man on Earth and 1971's The Omega Man. Smith plays virologist Robert...
off the top of the box office despite opening on half the number of screens. It went on to gross more than 2 billion yen ($18.5 million), making it the most successful documentary there of the last 10 years.
Its worldwide total of $108,942,691 made Earth a commercial success and placed it second on the all-time list of highest-grossing nature documentaries, behind March of the Penguins
March of the Penguins
March of the Penguins is a 2005 French nature documentary film. It was directed and co-written by Luc Jacquet, and co-produced by Bonne Pioche and the National Geographic Society. The film depicts the yearly journey of the emperor penguins of Antarctica...
.
Further reading
- Nature filmmaking: Ready for their close-up from The IndependentThe IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
- Screen giants of Earth, the year's biggest film from The Daily TelegraphThe Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
- Earth press book from the Greenlight Media website