Penguins of Madagascar

Prior to the events of the first film, Skipper, Rico, and Kowalski are chicks in a penguin colony in Antarctica. An egg rolls away from the colony, and the trio rescue it from leopard seals, but are set adrift on an iceberg. The egg hatches, and the trio name their new baby "brother" Private.

After the events of the third film, Skipper, Rico, and Kowalski celebrate Private's birthday by breaking into Fort Knox, to get Cheesy Dibbles from a vending machine, though what Private really wants is to no longer be considered a "mascot" but a member of the team. The machine comes to life and kidnaps the penguins. The kidnapper is revealed to be Dave, an octopus who lived in the Central Park Zoo as a star attraction, until the four penguins arrived and stole his popularity with their sheer cuteness. After being passed between zoos and aquariums as an unwanted animal, Dave has disguised himself as Dr. Octavius Brine the scientist, to enact his revenge. Rico swallows Dave's snowglobe collection and a vial of serum, and the penguins fight off Dave's octopus henchmen and escape.

Fleeing through Venice, the penguins are rescued by agents of the North Wind, an inter-species intelligence agency. "Classified", the wolf leader, informs the penguins that Dave has invented a bioweapon called "Medusa Serum". Rico regurgitates the serum to show Classified, and his North Wind companions: polar bear Corporal, harp seal demolitionist Short Fuse, and snowy owl intelligence officer Eva, with whom Kowalski falls in love. Dave hacks into the North Wind computers and reveals he has far more of the serum. Penguins then start disappearing from exhibits all over the world; fearing Skipper's amateur team will disrupt the investigation, Classified darts them and sends them via plane back to Madagascar.

Skipper's team escapes the plane, making their way to Shanghai. Using clues from Dave's snowglobes, they deduce the next zoo attacked will be Shanghai Zoo itself. Private, much to his chagrin, is dressed up as bait for Dave while the others lie in wait. The North Wind intervenes, and Private and the rest of the Shanghai penguins are captured; Skipper, Rico, and Kowalski attempt to steal Classified's jet, accidentally blowing it up. The North Wind trace Private to Dave's lair and sail there in a boat, with the three penguins towed behind on a raft without food or water as punishment.

Dave demonstrates his plan to mutate all penguins into monsters, so humans will hate them and try to kill them all. Skipper, Rico, and Kowalski reluctantly agree to act as a diversion while Classified leads his team into Dave's submarine; however, both the penguins and the North Wind are captured. Dave attempts to zap Private with his Medusa serum ray, but Private escapes. The others believe that Private has been disintegrated. Dave uses the serum on the rest of the penguins, while Private frees the North Wind. Having lost their weapons, they decide to go back to base to regroup, but Private refuses to abandon his brothers and stays behind.

Dave releases the mutated penguins on New York City, inciting a panic. As exterminators try to vacuum up the Penguins with street sweepers, Private steals the ray. He manages to find his brothers and explains his plan - if they replace the Medusa Serum capsule with him, he, as a "source of immeasurable cuteness", can be used to turn all the penguins normal. After an extended battle with Dave and the other octopus guards, during which the North Wind return and blow up Dave's submarine, Skipper manages to activate the ray. All penguins are turned back to normal, while Dave is shrunk to a cute baby octopus and trapped in a snowglobe, which a child decides to take home. Private is mutated into a moose/penguin hybrid, but everyone hails him as the hero of the day. Eva and Kowalski kiss, and Classified apologizes for his distrust of the brothers and gifts them four North Wind jet packs.

In a mid-credits scene, the penguins use Mort in the ray to return Private to normal. King Julien is disappointed Mort was not mutated into a monster, until Mort suddenly tries to eat him.

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 this film.
• Benedict Cumberbatch as Classified, a Eurasian wolf with a British accent. He is the North Wind's team leader.[1][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, a villainous and disgruntled octopus who has the human disguise of Dr. Octavius Brine.[1][15][20]
• Werner Herzog as a documentary filmmaker.[21]

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.[1] 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 back 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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