I'm not going to bury the lead here, folks: the prospect of seeing Benedict Cumberbatch at the press event for DreamWorks Animation's "Penguins of Madagascar" was part of what got me in the door on Thursday morning at Comic Con, and it was a bit of a letdown that Mr. Cumberbatch did not ultimately participate. However, directors Simon J. Smith and Eric Darnell and actors John Malkovich and Tom McGrath more than made up for it in their lively interaction with members of the media as they talked about the production of "Penguins" and provided some insight into the franchise to which it belongs.
The presentation kicked off with an acknowledgement of their star's in-demand status as director Eric Darnell declared that his daughter had been repeatedly "asking (him) for more pictures of Benedict Cumberbatch", and co-director Simon J. Smith followed suit, joking, "We've just been taking pictures with him..." With that as an ice-breaker, members of the press began asking about the forthcoming film. It's the latest installment in the lively "Madagascar" animated franchise, which now include three feature films - "Penguins" will be the fourth - and a series on Nickelodeon.
Rather than following the series storyline, the new film will pick up where the story left off at the end of "Madagascar 3". According to Mr. Smith, the penguins will be called on to "save the world from an evil villain called Dr. Octavius Brine, who's an octupus, played by John Malkovich. Along the way they stumble into a mission being led by Benedict Cumberbatch's character, Agent Classified, who's a wolf. They're a legitimate spy organization who go around saving helpless animals around the world. So, you've got this fantastic contrast of James Bond-ian Classified and the John Wayne-like Skipper (Tom McGrath) who's more 'shoot first and ask questions later', and then, hilarity continues from there."
Asked about what audiences can expect musically from "Penguins", Mr. Darnell confirmed that some original songs are in the works for the production. Also, Lorne Balfe, who worked with Hans Zimmer on the score for the preceding "Madagascar" films, has been working on "Penguins" and "has done some amazing, amazing scoring so far... so between the original songs and the score, we're going to have a great musical component to the film."
Fan-favorite Skipper is voiced by Tom McGrath, who had directing duties in the previous films. Asked about the casting, Mr. McGrath revealed that he originally wanted actor Robert Stack for the role. "A lot of (Skipper's) personality was based off of Robert's work from "The Untouchables", and he was just fantastic. But when it came time for us to cast we were two weeks away from animation, and Robert Stack had passed away. And I was filling in the scratch voice (scratch tracks are temporary recordings used in pre-production to faciltate synchronization of animation to finished soundtracks) and fell into the part. But I still think it would have been amazing to have Robert lend his voice because he was such an incredible actor."
Of course, a spy story is only as good as its villain, and having John Malkovich on board as baddie Octavius Brine will definitely up the ante for "Penguins". Asked about the most fun part of playing a bad guy, Mr. Malkovich thoughtfully explained, "I don't know that there's anything particularly natively fun about that, by definition. But this one I think is quite fun, because he seems a rather happy, lazy, not particularly profound or remorseful psychopath. And that's, of course, always a pleasure. It's been a very fun character to play. I know that actors sometimes say that - 'Oh, that's more fun than playing a character that's meant to be decent.' I'm not convinced of that. Some parts are more interesting than others, but they're not always more interesting because their motivation is "bad" - they just might be better written."
Audiences can tune in on November 14 to check out the continuing adventures of the "Penguins of Madagascar" as they join Agent Classified to save the world from Dr. Octavius Brine. "Penguins" is a production of DreamWorks Animation and is being distributed in the US by Twentieth Century Fox.
