How ‘Polar Bear’ Filmmakers Navigated Making the Saddest Disney Movie Ever

thewrap.com:

Are you running out of animals? You’ve done so many movies.Alastair Fothergill: Do you know that’s one of the most intelligent questions we’ve had all through this junket and I tell you why – it’s very, very challenging to find a star animal that people will love to watch.

That’ll fill 75 minutes of drama. You might think pandas, we all love pandas. That’s true, but pandas do very little apart from eat bamboo and fart, so you would never do a Disneynature film on pandas.

We chose polar bears because from our experience of working in the arctic, we absolutely knew there was an amazing story to be told about them and there’ll be no trouble at all in developing a powerful narrative that would last 75 minutes.You bring up the narrative and this documentary feels very different from other Disneynature features.

How did you establish the tone and voice for “Polar Bear,” especially after looking at so much footage?Jeff Wilson: You’re right, and actually it was something that Alistair and I worried about a lot.