The film was produced by Walt Disney Productions and directed by Robert Stevenson from a screenplay by Lowell S. Hawley, based upon Jules Verne's 1868 adventure novel Captain Grant's Children.

In Melbourne they meet a treacherous gunrunner, Thomas Ayerton, who produces evidence that Captain Grant is in New Zealand.

Unaware that Ayerton is the third mate who caused a mutiny on Grant's ship, the search party once more sets sail.

They are captured by Maori cannibals, and are imprisoned along with Captain Grant's shipmate, Bill Gaye, who helps them escape to a volcano.

As they all sit around talking, the note that Professor Paganel initially found (and that was supposedly in Captain Grant's handwriting) is brought up.

[6] In April 1961, Disney announced they would make the film with Mills and Charles Laughton with Hugh Attool to produce and Robert Stevenson to direct.

[13] The New York Times declared: "It is, as we say, a whopping fable, more gimmicky than imaginative, but it doesn't lack for lively melodrama that is more innocent and wholesome than much of the stuff the children see these days on television".

[14] A review in Variety said: "Walt Disney has come up with another splendid piece of spectacular hokum, lavishly coloured and packed with incident and special effects.

Attention is discreetly drawn away from the rather cardboard characters, and the Fauntleroy smile of Michael Anderson, by a kaleidoscope of colour and movement".