'David Attenborough: Ocean' to Debut on Disney+/Hulu in 2025

Since the streaming wars took off, cable channels have been in dire straits. Basic cable still has a floor, but all those higher tertiary channels are zombie channels, playing to an audience share of 0.0. BBC America (very much not basic cable) was already in trouble before that reality hit, losing Top Gear to Amazon, Doctor Who to Disney, and most of its best library shows to BritBox. As of 2024, BBC America only had David Attenborough's nature specials and Graham Norton to tether it to its original concept. Unfortunately, for 2025, it will only be Graham Norton, as Attenborough's next project, David Attenborough: Ocean, will debut on Disney+ and Hulu.

Produced by Silverback Pictures, Ocean is Attentborough's first nature special that will focus specifically on the effects of climate change on a massive and vital part of our natural habitat. It is also unusual because it was made as a stand-alone feature film with National Geographic. First and perhaps most importantly, this meant Attenborough would not be beholden to the BBC, which has openly tried to censor his more strident diatribes against those who refuse to acknowledge climate change. 

Second, and perhaps just as vitally, this means National Geographic's parent company, Disney, can release the special in theaters, especially IMAX theaters. (Those who are museum geeks and have watched the specially made short IMAX films about our oceans know.) This may not seem like a big deal, but it will get the project more exposure globally, and with Attenborough hitting 99 years old in April 2025, it is a heck of a birthday gift.

Here's the film's synopsis via Silverback Film's press release:

Presented and authored by the 98-year-old broadcaster, David Attenborough: Ocean will share how we can, and must, restore the glory of Earth’s vast, interconnected waters. After nearly a hundred years of filming every aspect of the natural world, Attenborough delivers his most powerful message yet. In this film, he draws on his lifetime of knowledge and experience to take us on a journey of wonder through the planet’s most spectacular undersea habitats, revealing that we are currently living in the greatest age of ocean discovery and showing beyond doubt they are the most important places on Earth.

While Attenborough exposes the biggest problems facing our ocean, his story is one of hope, and that in front of us is an opportunity for marine life to recover on a scale no one has ever seen. The timely film will debut in 2025, midway through the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030). It is clear without doubt that we can only stabilize the climate by restoring the ocean, and our film will amplify the solutions that are already at hand and ready to be immediately implemented to help turn the tide.

David Attenborough wrote and presents the feature film documentary, with directors Toby Nowlan, Keith Scholey, and Colin Butfield sharing helming duties, with Nowlan producing. Silverback produces the film with All3Media International, Ocean Ten Media, Minderoo Productions, National Geographic Society and Pristine Seas, Don Quixote ASBL, and The Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation.

David Attenborough: Ocean will debut in theaters and then on streaming in 2025.