Penguins of Madagascar

Skipper, Rico, and Kowalski are chicks in a penguin colony in Antarctica. The trio rescue a runaway egg from leopard seals, but are set adrift on an iceberg. The egg hatches, and the trio name their new baby "brother" Private.

Ten years later, after the events of the third film, the Penguins leave Circus Zaragoza to celebrate Private's birthday. They break into Fort Knox to get Cheesy Dibbles from a vending machine. Private voices his desire to be recognized as an official member of the team, but is ignored. The Penguins are subsequently kidnapped and taken to a submarine, where they are confronted by the octopus Dave. Dave explains that he once lived in the Central Park Zoo as a star attraction, until the Penguins arrived and stole his popularity with their cuteness. After being repeatedly upstaged by penguins and passed between zoos and aquariums as an unwanted animal, a bitter Dave escaped and disguised himself as a human scientist Dr. Octavius Brine to enact his revenge. Rico swallows a vial of Dave’s bioweapon, the “Medusa Serum,” along with his snow globe collection, and the Penguins fight off Dave's octopus henchmen and escape.

Fleeing through Venice, the penguins are rescued by the North Wind, an inter-species intelligence agency; "Classified", the wolf leader; polar bear weapons specialist Corporal; harp seal demolitionist Short Fuse; and snowy owl intelligence officer Eva, on whom Kowalski develops a crush. Rico coughs up the serum, only for Dave to hack into the North Wind’s computers to reveal he has more of it. Afterwards, penguins start vanishing from exhibits all over the world. Classified deems the Penguins a liability to the mission, darts them, then puts them on a plane bound for Madagascar.

The Penguins escape the plane and, using Dave's snowglobes, deduce that the Shanghai Zoo is Dave's next target. Skipper's team forms a plan to stop Dave, to which Private reluctantly agrees to act as bait. The other penguins manage to trap Dave with a dinosaur skeleton after creating a water leak in the aquarium, just as The North Wind shows up. However, Dave escapes through a drain, and Private and the rest of the Shanghai penguins are captured. Skipper, Rico, and Kowalski steal The North Wind's jet to pursue Dave, but accidentally blow it up. At Dave’s lair, Private learns that Dave is planning to use the Medusa Serum to turn penguins into mindless, disfigured monsters, so the public will hate and exterminate them.

Upon reaching Dave’s hideout, the Penguins and the North Wind clash over their different plans to infiltrate the submarine. However, Skipper finally admits the North Wind to be more qualified and relents. The Penguins distract the octopus guards as a diversion while the North Wind sneak inside, but both teams are captured. Dave tests the Medusa Serum on Private, but he escapes with a paper clip he swallowed earlier at the last second, causing Dave and the rest of the Penguins to believe he has been vaporized. Private frees the North Wind and tries to convince them to help save the penguins but they refuse, causing him to storm off on his own.

Dave uses the Medusa Serum to transform all the penguins, and, As Dr. Brine, unleashes them on New York City. Pest Control is quickly called in. In the chaos, Private manages to obtain Dave's ray and chases down Skipper, Kowalski, and Rico, and restore them to sanity. The Penguins battle Dave, and the North Wind returns to help. Private inserts himself into Dave’s ray, using the power of his own cuteness to restore the other penguins to normal, though leaving himself mutated. For his actions, Private finally earns his place as a qualified member of the team. Meanwhile, Dave is shrunk and trapped in one of his snow globes, which a little girl takes. Classified congratulates the Penguins and apologizes for misjudging them, and gives the Penguins jetpacks as a reward, the penguins fly their jetpacks back to Circus Zaragoza.

In a post-credits scene, the penguins use Mort’s cuteness to restore Private. Although Mort is seems unaffected by the ray at first, he quickly swallows King Julien.

John Malkovich and Benedict Cumberbatch talking at the Penguins of Madagascar panel at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con International

• Tom McGrath as Skipper, the leader of the penguins.[15]
• Chris Miller as Kowalski, the brains of the penguins.[15]
• Christopher Knights as Private, the rookie of the penguins.[15]
• Conrad Vernon as Rico,[16] the loose cannon of the penguins. Vernon replaces John DiMaggio as the voice of Rico in the film.
• Benedict Cumberbatch as Agent Classified, a Eurasian wolf with a British accent. He is the North Wind's team leader.[2][17][18][19]
• Ken Jeong as Short Fuse, a Belgian white-coated harp seal and a member of the North Wind who serves as their expert in explosives and demolitions.[12]
• Annet Mahendru as Eva, a Russian snowy owl with a matching accent, Kowalski's love interest/girlfriend, and the North Wind's intelligence analyst.[15]
• Peter Stormare as Corporal, a Norwegian polar bear and a member of the North Wind who serves as the muscle.[15]
• John Malkovich as Dave / Dr. Octavius Brine, a villainous and disgruntled Giant Pacific octopus who has the human disguise.[2][15][20]
• Werner Herzog as Himself (credited as "Documentary Filmmaker".)[21]
• Billy Eichner as New York Reporter

Danny Jacobs and Andy Richter voice King Julien XIII (in place of Sacha Baron Cohen) and Mort in the mid-credits scene.

A direct-to-video film featuring the penguins had been in the works since 2005 when the first Madagascar film was released, with a release date initially planned for 2009.[22] The studio announced in March 2011 that the penguin characters would be given their own theatrical feature film to be directed by Simon J. Smith, the co-director of Bee Movie, produced by Lara Breay, and written by Alan J. Schoolcraft and Brent Simons, the writers of DreamWorks' Megamind.[23][24]

At the July 2012 Comic-Con, DreamWorks Animation announced that the film, titled The Penguins of Madagascar, would be released in 2015.[25] Robert Schooley, one of the producers of The Penguins of Madagascar series, said that the film would be unrelated to the TV series of the same name, but added that that could always change.[26] In early September 2012, 20th Century Fox, the studio's new distributor, and DreamWorks Animation announced a release date of March 27, 2015 and a new pair of writers, Michael Colton and John Aboud.[27] Benedict Cumberbatch and John Malkovich joined the cast in August 2013.[2] Malkovich, who had been offered the role of Dr. Octavius Brine three and a half years before the film's release, told an audience at the July 2014 Comic-Con that he thought that it "was a funny idea" to use his voice for an octopus.[28]

On May 20, 2014, the film's release date was moved up to November 26, 2014 from its initial March 27, 2015 date, switching places with DreamWorks Animation's other film Home.[29] Jeffrey Katzenberg, DreamWorks Animation's CEO, reasoned that the film, coming from one of DWA's most successful franchises, would have an easier task to stand out around the Thanksgiving holiday season while Home was to try taking advantage of a less competitive spring release window and repeat successful spring launches of some of DWA's original films, such as The Croods and How to Train Your Dragon.[30] The film was released two weeks earlier in China on November 14, 2014, where it was released by Oriental DreamWorks.[31]

The film was released in RealD 3D and Digital 3D formats.[6] It was digitally remastered into the IMAX format, and released in select theaters across Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.[32] A four-issue comic book series based on the film was published by Titan Comics, written by Alex Matthews and drawn by Lucas Fereyra.[33]

Lorne Balfe composed the original score for the film,[60] making it his first solo debut in a DreamWorks Animation film. Balfe wrote the additional music for the previous two Madagascar films and helped Madagascar composer Hans Zimmer with the score for Megamind. The soundtrack was released on November 25, 2014, by Relativity Music Group.[60] Relativity also released an EP, Penguins of Madagascar: Black & White Christmas Album, which featured five holiday songs.[60] Pitbull performed a song titled "Celebrate" for the film, which was played during the credits. A music video of the song was also released on YouTube in October 21, 2014.

A video game based on the film, titled Penguins of Madagascar, and published by Little Orbit, was released on November 25, 2014, for Nintendo 3DS, Wii, and Wii U.[61]

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• Official website
• Penguins of Madagascar at IMDb