Motivated by the success it had at the box office with “March of the Penguins,” The Walt Disney Co. announced on Monday its decision to launch a new film production unit called Disneynature that will make documentary films.

The executive vice president of the new film production unit will be Jean-Francois Camilleri, who also worked on “March of the Penguins,” a documentary about penguin families living in Antarctica. The film was produced with just $3 million, launched in 2005 and grossed $127 million at the global box office.

Camilleri, who has long served as senior VP-general manager for Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures France, said that the amount of money gathered by the documentary showed what a great film it is and its success is strong evidence that people have an appetite for this type of movies.

Disneynature will be based in France.

Disney already announced it plans seven movies and the first of them will be “Earth,” which illustrates the story of three mothers (a polar bear, elephant and humpback whale) with their offspring during one year.

“Earth”, a film adapted from the popular BBC television series "Planet Earth," will be released on Earth Day, April 22, 2009.

Two others films Disney said it planned to produce through Disneynature are "Chimpanzee" and "Big Cats."

"Our goal at Disneynature is to bring big event films as only nature can tell," Dick Cook, chairman of The Walt Disney Studios,

Disney shares rose 13 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $31.46 in midday trading.