It has been 20 years since DreamWorks fired the starting pistol on one of its biggest animated franchises of all time with Madagascar. The tale of four New York City zoo animals stranded on the titular island has since spawned two direct sequel movies, a spin-off film, four short films, three TV series, and a television special. But it all started with The Beatles.
In the early 2000s, directors Tom McGrath and Eric Darnell and producer Mireille Soria were developing a project called Rockumentary. The bizarre concept behind this film would have been to remake the 1964 musical A Hard Day’s Night — in which The Beatles play versions of themselves — with penguins in the roles of the Fab Four.
“It had to be shelved because of problems with the music rights,” McGrath told the New York Times. That was perhaps a foreseeable issue with such an outlandish movie based on arguably the most significant band ever to have lived. But, six months later, another project came around with penguins in what was then a minor role.
McGrath decided to do more with these penguins, changing the idea of a storm being responsible for the animals’ predicament to a ship being hijacked by military-style penguins.
“I was thinking S.W.A.T. with penguins, playing aggressiveness against their cuteness,” said McGrath. The director himself ended up voicing lead penguin Skipper, as a cross between Charlton Heston and Oscar-winner Robert Stack.
In 2005, Darnell said: “We recognised the comedic potential of penguins. They’re just funny, they’re natural comedians, and to…do something that’s counter-intuitive, whether it’s making them a great rock band or making them, in this case, these World War II-style POWs, steely-eyed, it’s just not what you expect penguins to be.”
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There ended up being another surprising Beatles link when Madagascar finally came into cinemas. One of the posters for the film featured the four escaped animals framed in a spotlight outside the zoo, looking similar to the cover art for Band On the Run by Paul McCartney’s band Wings. As McGrath explained to Skwigly: “Actually, marketing came up with that. We saw that and it seemed funny.”
Madagascar eventually benefited from a killer comedy cast, led by Ben Stiller at the peak of his box office powers. He was joined by Friends star David Schwimmer, comedian Chris Rock, and Jada Pinkett Smith — four terrific central performers. It went on to make $557m (£411m) worldwide, turning those sequels into an absolute no-brainer.
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Perhaps one day we’ll get to see the version of A Hard Day’s Night with penguins that hit the cutting room floor all those years ago. Sam Mendes hasn’t directly confirmed that he isn’t doing that with his four-part Beatles biopic, right? Barry Keoghan and Paul Mescal could definitely pull off the roles as CGI penguins. We’d buy as many tickets to that as we could.
Madagascar is streaming in the UK via ITVX and Sky/NOW.
