It seems like Benedict Cumberbatch’s upper class British accent is getting him all of the voiceover roles recently. Donning the voice of Smaug the Dragon in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Cumberbatch is set to voice an animal CIA agent in The Penguins of Madagascar.
Those military penguins have really come into their own after their debut in the 2005 DreamWorks Animation Madagascar. With a TV show, a straight-to-DVD film and a comic; The Penguins of Madagascar have managed to secure their own film, set for cinematic release in March 2015.
Bee Movie’s Simon J Smith will be directing, with a script written by Michael Colton and John Aboud. Original directors Tom McGrath and Eric Darnell are still part of the creative process and have taken the executive producer roles.
However, Cumberbatch is not the only star ready to lend his voice. With Ben Stiller returning as lion Alex, David Schwimmer as Melman, Chris Rock as Marty and Jada Pinkett Smith as Gloria the Hippo. John DiMaggo will voice penguin Rico alongside Tom McGrath who has returned to the mic as Skipper. But who will voice the villain? Well, that role has been given to none other than John Malkovich. What a perfect voice for an evil villain!
