Penguins of Madagascar

Penguins of Madagascar (also known as Penguins of Madagascar: The Movie) is a 2014 American animated spy action comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and PDI/DreamWorks and distributed by 20th Century Fox. Directed by Eric Darnell and Simon J. Smith from a screenplay written by Michael Colton, John Aboud and Brandon Sawyer, it is a spin-off of the Madagascar franchise, and the fourth film overall. Despite the title of the film, it is directly unrelated to the Nickelodeon TV series of the same name. Starring the voices of Tom McGrath, Chris Miller, Christopher Knights, Conrad Vernon, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ken Jeong, Annet Mahendru, Peter Stormare and John Malkovich, it takes place directly after the events of Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (2012), following the adventures of four Adélie penguins - Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and Private - as they join forces with the North Wind intelligence agency to stop the Giant Pacific octopus Dave, who seeks revenge on all Adélie penguins across the Earth for being upstaged by capturing them. Development of a direct-to-video (DTV) spin-off film featuring the four penguins began following the release of Madagascar in 2005, but did not come to fruition until in March 2011 when it was announced that the penguins would be given their own theatrical film instead. Cumberbatch and Malkovich signed in August 2013. Penguins of Madagascar was released theatrically in China on November 14, 2014, and in the United States on November 26, 2014. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, but despite grossing $373 million on a $132 million budget, the film underperformed by DreamWorks' standards, and lost the studio $57.1 million. This is the final DreamWorks Animation film to be produced by PDI/DreamWorks before its closure on January 22, 2015, with DreamWorks Animation (DWA) Glendale taking over. Plot