Madagascar (2005 film)

Madagascar is a 2005 American animated survival comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation SKG and PDI/DreamWorks, and distributed by DreamWorks Pictures.[2][1] The film was directed by Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath (in McGrath's feature directorial debut) and written by Darnell, McGrath, Mark Burton, and Billy Frolick. The film stars the voices of Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith, Sacha Baron Cohen, Cedric the Entertainer, and Andy Richter. It centers around a group of animals from the Central Park Zoo who find themselves stranded on the island of Madagascar and must adjust to living in the wild.
DreamWorks and PDI began developing an animated film titled Rockumentary, featuring a Beatles-esque penguin rock band, and was set to be directed by Darnell, after he finished his work on Antz (1998). The idea was scrapped in 2001, but Darnell decided to revive the penguins, albeit with a commando unit instead rather than a rock band after production on Madagascar started. The film features several songs from various artists, with musical score being composed by Hans Zimmer. It also has the cover of "I Like to Move It" by Cohen, which has since become a recurring theme song throughout the franchise.
Released on May 27, 2005, Madagascar received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the visuals and charm but criticized the story and humor. Despite this, it was a success at the box office, grossing $556.6 million on a production budget of $75 million, becoming the sixth highest-grossing film of 2005. The success of Madagascar launched a multimedia franchise, which includes two sequels as well as the spin-off film Penguins of Madagascar (2014); several short films, television series and specials; and a number of video games, theme park attractions and live stage shows, starting with Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008) and Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (2012).
== Plot[edit] ==
In New York City, lion Alex lives in the Central Park Zoo as a star attraction known as the "King of New York", and spends time with his friends — reticulated giraffe Melman, hippopotamus Gloria and his best friend, plains zebra Marty, who has grown weary of his daily routine and desires to experience the wild. On Marty's tenth birthday, Alex, Melman and Gloria attempt to cheer him up, but a still-unsatisfied Marty learns that the zoo's penguins — Skipper, Kowalski, Rico, and Private — are trying to escape to Antarctica, and promptly follows them out. Marty heads towards Grand Central Terminal, as he plans to catch a train to nearby Connecticut. Alex, Melman and Gloria pursue Marty in an attempt to convince him to return, only to end up, along with the penguins and chimpanzee duo Mason and Phil, at Grand Central, where the police officers, firemen and animal control officers subdue them. Under pressure from anti-captivity activists, the zoo is forced to ship the escaped animals by sea to a nature reserve in Kenya. During the trip, the penguins escape their crate and commandeer the ship in the hopes of heading to Antarctica, causing the crates containing Alex and his friends to fall overboard.
Upon being washed ashore on Madagascar, the animals come across its lemur community. The predatory fossa attack the lemurs, only to be scared off by the fearsome appearance of Alex, who selfishly blames Marty for the group's predicament and makes several attempts to get them back to civilization. Marty finds life on Madagascar to be exactly what he was looking for and Gloria and Melman soon join him. Alex, coming to realize how selfish and entitled he has been and after some encouragement from Marty, eventually comes around and makes amends, but without the raw steaks he was provided at the zoo, his hunger sets in and prey drive begins to show. The lemurs' leader, ring-tailed lemur King Julien XIII, leads his subjects into befriending the castaways in hopes that Alex's presence will keep the fossa at bay, despite protest about Alex's predatory nature from his adviser, aye-aye Maurice. After briefly losing his sanity and attacking Marty, Alex realizes what he has done and, fearing he may be a danger to his friends, flees to the predator side of the island, where the fossa live. Seeing what Alex has become and how dangerous the wild can be, Marty regrets his decision to leave the zoo.
Having found Antarctica to be inhospitable, the penguins land the ship at Madagascar. Seeing the chance to return Alex to New York, Marty crosses over to the predator side and attempts to convince Alex to return, but he refuses out of fear that he will attack Marty again. The fossa attack Marty and though Gloria, Melman and the penguins come to the rescue, they are outnumbered. Alex overcomes his predatory instincts, rescues his friends and scares the fossa away from the lemur territory permanently. The lemurs regain their respect for Alex and the penguins satisfy his hunger by feeding him sushi, which he finds better than steak. As the lemurs throw a farewell celebration for the foursome, the penguins decide not to tell them that the ship has run out of fuel, leaving them stranded on the island for the time being.
== Voice cast[edit] ==
See also: List of Madagascar (franchise) characters
link=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:David_Schwimmer_2005_Madagascar.jpg|thumb|David Schwimmer at the film's British premiere in London
* Ben Stiller as Alex, a lion. Tom McGrath explained that "Ben Stiller was the first actor we asked to perform, and we knew we wanted his character, Alex, to be a big performing lion with a vulnerable side."[3]
* Chris Rock as Marty, a plains zebra and Alex's best friend. McGrath explained the character: "Marty is a guy who thinks there might be more to life than what's in the zoo. We wanted his character to be energetic, so we listened to Chris Rock."[3]
* David Schwimmer as Melman, a hypochondriac reticulated giraffe and one of Alex's friends who has germ phobias.[3] When they were looking for a voice actor for Melman, they listened to Schwimmer's voice on Friends and, according to McGrath, thought that it "sounded really neat".[3] During development, Melman was originally supposed to be an okapi but was changed to a giraffe.[4]
* Jada Pinkett Smith as Gloria, a strong, confident and sweet hippopotamus who is one of Alex's friends.[3] McGrath said that they found all these traits in Pinkett Smith's voice when they listened to her.[3]
* Sacha Baron Cohen as King Julien XIII, a ring-tailed lemur and the leader of Madagascar's lemur community. King Julien was initially only meant to be a "two-line" character until auditioning Baron Cohen improvised eight minutes of dialogue in an Indian accent.[5]
* Cedric the Entertainer as Maurice, an aye-aye and King Julien's royal advisor and assistant (to whom Julien never listens).
* Andy Richter as Mort, a Goodman's mouse lemur who is King Julien's biggest fan and Maurice's best friend.
* Tom McGrath as Skipper, a penguin who leads a commando unit consisting of himself and three other penguins. McGrath, who was also co-wrote and co-directed the film initially only lent his voice to the temporary tracks.[6][7] Growing up with films starring tough actors like John Wayne, Charlton Heston, and Robert Stack, it was the latter of whom McGrath wanted for the voice of Skipper.[8] Stack was approached about voicing the character, but died two weeks before production on the animation began.[8][9][10] After that, DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg decided to keep the temporary voice, with McGrath explaining: "People were used to me doing that voice. We knew it worked when we screened it."[8] Many of the character's traits were based on Stack's work.[10] McGrath especially emphasized The Untouchables, a 1959 television crime drama series starring Stack.[10]
* Chris Miller as Kowalski, a penguin and Skipper's right hand man and intelligence officer of the team.[6]
** Miller also voices Timo, a tenrec who is only seen attending Julien's meeting.
* Jeffrey Katzenberg as Rico, a silent penguin who is the loose-cannon explosives expert and weapons supplier of Skipper's team who only communicates through grunts and squeals.[6] Mireille Soria, the film's producer, commented on Katzenberg's uncredited role: "The irony for us is that he's the one who doesn't talk. There's something very Dadaistic about that, isn't there?"[6]
** Katzenberg also voices Abner, a blue-eyed lemur who is only seen at the paradise scene.
* Christopher Knights as Private, an English-accented penguin who is the mild-mannered eager rookie of Skipper's team.[6] Knights was also an assistant editor on the film.[6]
* Conrad Vernon as Mason, a chimpanzee (Phil, the other chimpanzee, is unvoiced, communicating to Mason via Sign Language. Despite this, Phil is the one who can read whereas Mason cannot.)
* Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath as the fossa.
** Darnell also voices Hector and Horst, two lemurs.
* David P. Smith as Pancho, a crowned lemur.
** Smith also voices Becca, a black lemur and a spider.
* Cody Cameron as Willie, a red lemur who is only seen attending Julien's meeting.
* Elisa Gabrielli as Nana, an elderly Yiddish-accented New Yorker. Gabrielli provided some background voices until the directors and producer asked her and her fellow actors if they wanted to try their voices for the role. Upon seeing a black and white sketch of Nana, Gabrielli knew that she wanted to voice her. She modeled Nana's voice after her Russian and Hungarian grandmothers and her stepfather, though she didn't think that her voice would be kept in the finished film at first.[11]
* Bob Saget as an unspecified off-screen zoo animal.
* David Cowgill as a police horse.
* Stephen Apostolina as a police officer.
== Production[edit] ==
According to co-director Tom McGrath, the idea for Madagascar began as a one-sentence prompt, and it took two years of development for the idea to be refined to the point where the four main characters were finalized.[12] In 1998, DreamWorks and PDI had started development on an animated film titled Rockumentary, which featured a Beatles-esque penguin rock band, and was to be directed by Eric Darnell, after he finished his work on Antz. The idea was scrapped in 2001, but after production on Madagascar started, Darnell decided to revive the penguins as a commando unit rather than a rock band.[12]
In the original script, Gloria was pregnant due to the zoo's breeding program and the baby was born on the island. Melman, who had a crush on Gloria, would help raise the child like it was his own. The idea was cut from the final version because test audiences thought the pregnancy plotline was too mature for a family film and felt uncomfortable with the pairing of Melman and Gloria. However, the idea of Melman having a crush on Gloria was reused for the sequels. Melman was originally planned to be an okapi but was changed to a giraffe because that was a more familiar animal.[citation needed]
Originally, Julien was intended to be a minor character with only two lines. However, when Sacha Baron Cohen auditioned for the role, he improvised not only an Indian accent, but eight minutes of dialogue for his recording. The filmmakers found Cohen's performance so funny that they rewrote the script and made Julien a much more prominent character in the story as "King of the Lemurs". Dana Carvey was originally offered a role but he turned it down as he was busy raising kids at the time.[13]
== Home media[edit] ==
Madagascar was released on VHS
Category:VHS Tape