---
title: "The Future Is Wild"
chunk: 2/4
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_Is_Wild"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:51:21.564426+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

== Development and production ==
The idea for The Future Is Wild was first conceived in 1996 by Joanna Adams, a British entrepreneur who has previously produced documentaries on modern and extinct animals. As an independent producer, Adams wanted to create a documentary series different from anything that had come before, and something that could not be copied by larger production companies. The series was envisioned as an entertaining, informative and inspirational way to explain planetary change and evolution, suitable for the popular market worldwide. In 1996, the concept of the series, and ideas for an accompanying multimedia franchise, was first unveiled at the Frankfurt Book Fair and the MIPTV Media Market.
The Future Is Wild was influenced by Scottish geologist and paleontologist Dougal Dixon's 1981 book After Man, which imagines wildlife and ecosystems 50 million years in the future. Dixon was brought in as a consultant early on in the development of the series and designed many of the creatures featured. The series was not able to use any of Dixon's creatures from After Man, given that the rights to adapting After Man were at this time owned by DreamWorks SKG. Nevertheless, several creatures were similar to Dixon's earlier designs, such as the Gannetwhale, a seal-like bird similar to whale-like penguins in After Man.
The series was created in close collaboration with scientists, filmmakers and animators. Although the future creatures and environments created for the series are all fictional, they were based on evolutionary principles and grounded in science. According to Adams: "If you look at the creatures, you cannot say with any degree of accuracy that this is going to happen, but what you can say is, given certain conditions, creatures like this could develop." Adams felt that it was important that the series would not just be dismissed as "another science-fiction fantasy", but that it would instead be seen as something credible. The geography of the future worlds depicted were designed through collaboration with geologists, and botanists and weather experts were consulted for the future environments. In addition to Dougal Dixon, several other animal experts, biomechanics engineers, and other scientists took part in designing the animals in the series.
In total, development and production of The Future Is Wild took six years. Throughout its development, some television executives had very different and conflicting ideas of what the series should be. In particular, some were concerned about humans being absent and wished for a contrived explanation as to what happened to humanity. Adams co-produced the series with the Franco-German channel Arte, the German ZDF, the Austrian ORF, the Italian Mediaset and the American Animal Planet and Discovery Channel. In total, the series cost £5 million to make.

== Episodes ==

== Distribution ==
The Future Is Wild aired on Animal Planet in the United Kingdom, on the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet in the United States, on ZDF in Germany, on ORF in Austria and on Mediaset in Italy. The series was wildly successful, winning several accolades and achieving high ratings on channels worldwide. The premiere of The Future Is Wild on Animal Planet in the United States doubled the channel's previous highest viewership (being viewed by about 1.8 million households) and The Future Is Wild to this day remains the number one most viewed series in Animal Planet's history. ZDF Enterprises sold the television rights of the series to 18 markets: Belgium, Canada, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Middle East, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia and Venezuela. The series continues to be licensed internationally. As of 2021, The Future Is Wild has been broadcast in over 60 countries.

== Multimedia franchise ==
Following the airing of the series, The Future Is Wild branched out into various other media, including books, children's entertainment, exhibitions, theme park rides, educational material and toys.

=== Books ===
The Future Is Wild was accompanied by two companion books, The Future Is Wild: A Natural History of the Future (2002), co-authored by Dougal Dixon and Joanna Adams, and The Wild World of the Future (2003) by Claire Pye. The Future Is Wild: A Natural History of the Future is a 128-page family reference work and The Wild World of the Future is a 96-page reference work for younger children. These books were translated into 20 languages. The French translation of The Wild World of the Future, titled Les Animaux du Futur ('The Animals of the Future'), incorporated augmented reality, one of the first books to do so.
Another children's reference work, also 96 pages long, was co-authored by Dougal Dixon and Joanna Adams in the 2010s, titled The Future Is Wild: Our World Tomorrow. The book was published in 2016 in China by Hunan Publishing. Internationally, the book has been released in eBook and iBook format as an augmented reality book, under the title The Future Is Wild: The Living Book. The Future Is Wild: The Living Book was released in 2011, first presented at the 2011 Frankfurt Book Fair. The more than forty different augmented reality features were developed by the German company Meatio. The book has received scholarly attention as a work that showcases how augmented reality can encourage readers to connect with a book.

=== Animated children’s series ===