Los Angeles  - Disney released a new nature documentary on Wednesday in a move designed to mark Earth Day and recall the company's pioneering efforts to bring wildlife movies to the masses from the 1940s on with its True-Life Adventure films.

The new movie, entitled Earth, follows the fortunes of three animal families - a mother polar bear and her cubs in the Arctic, a family of elephants on the edges of the Kalahari Desert and the adventures of a humpback whale and her calf as they undertake a 6,500-kilometre migration.

The film is directed by Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield, shot by some 60 cameramen and narrated by James Earl Jones. Disney has promised to plant a tree for every box office ticket sold. (dpa)