Hollywood Loves Penguins

Penguins are suddenly the hottest birds in town.

Penguins, penguins, penguins! The movie box office seems to be currently in love with the Emperor Penguin. Animated or live action, Hollywood cannot seem to get enough of the waddling aquatic birds.

The penguin craze started with the documentary March of the Penguins which opened in the United States in January 2005. This National Geographic film by French director Luc Jacquet was the most financially successful documentary of the year. Not only did it make money but it educated it’s audience, that ranged from children to senior citizens, about the intimate lives of the Emperor Penguins.

In May of 2005 Madagascar opened and went on to make a ton of money at the box office. It is about a lion, a zebra, a giraffe and a hippopotamus, but is was the penguins, who have a much smaller role, who stole the film from the other animals. Their antics of breaking out of the zoo and heading to the south pole are the best moments in the movie.

Such a hit were the Madagascar penguins that they earned their very own cartoon short, The Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper. The holiday search and rescue cartoon was shown at theaters with Wallace and Gromit: The curse of the Were Rabbit in October.

In November of 2006, Happy Feet opened with an all star cast of voices like Elijah Woods, Robin Williams, Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman. It is about a penguin who can dance but not sing and as anyone who saw March of the Penguins knows, penguins find mates and identify each other by “singing.”

Penguins are, like everything else, not new to movies. One of my favorite Bugs Bunny cartoons is when he goes to great lengths to take a penguin to the south pole in Frigid Hare (1949). The adorable little, top hat wearing, penguin cries ice cubes. An animated version of Humphrey Bogart’s character from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) makes a cameo in it. Real life penguins were prominently featured in Batman Returns (1992). In it, Danny Devito as the villain Penguin, straps missiles onto his pet penguins backs as part of a ridiculous plan to destroy Gotham City. In 1995 there was the feature length cartoon The Pebble and the Penguin with Martin Short doing the voice of a penguin desperately trying to give a pebble to his true love.

Although penguins are hardly new to movies, it does certainly appear that they are the latest film craze. Hollywood is betting that the craze is not yet over. On June 8th we have another penguin tale being told. This time it is a surfing penguin, voiced by Shia LeBeouf, in Surf's Up. Is their anything those little guys can't do?