SK Films has been given US$3 million to go chase butterflies, and plans to shoot its large-screen Flight of the Butterflies through most of next year in Ontario, Texas and Mexico.

The project reunites the team that made Bugs!, the large-format 3D look at insect life that has been the jewel in SK’s crown since 2003. Director Mike Slee and DOP Sean Phillips will work under Jonathan Barker of SK and Phil Streather of U.K.-based Principal Large Format. JoAnna Baldwin Mallory (Wired to Win) will co-exec produce for the National Science Foundation in the U.S.

The project takes flight following the multimillion-dollar windfall from NSF, for both the film and its educational program, to be created with the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution.

The film will follow both the migration of monarchs and the decades-old search for their winter home in the remote mountains of Mexico, a mystery that was eventually solved with help from a number of ‘citizen scientists,’ a U.S. Army code-breaker and his Mexican wife, according to SK.

Filming is set for February through November, with a release expected in 2009.