BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH LEADS THE NORTH WIND – “PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR’S” LATEST ALLIES

What are the odds when the world’s elitest of spies join forces with the earth’s chicest undercover organization in the all-adventure family movie “Penguins of Madagascar.”

 

The most hilarious covert birds in the global espionage biz: Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and Private.  These elitest of the elites are joining forces with a chic undercover organization, The North Wind.  Led by handsome and husky Agent Classified voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch.  Together, they must stop the villainous Dr. Octavius Brine, voiced by John Malkovich, from destroying the world as we know it.

The Penguins are ever-confident in their ability to deal with Dave’s insidious plans, but a group of covert operatives known as The North Wind (their motto: “Nobody breaks The Wind!”), who help animals in need, do not think the guys are up to the task.  In fact, the members of The North Wind do everything they can to take over the mission to stop Dave, much to the chagrin of Skipper and the gang.

“On the surface it looks like The North Wind is the real deal and Skipper maybe should get out of the way,” says producer Lara Breay.  “It’s like the ‘grown-ups’ have arrived, so the kids can go home now.  But during the course of the adventure, we come to appreciate the Penguins’ strengths.  They don’t have the flash or training, but they have something that’s more important.”

The North Wind is led by Agent Classified.  The first thing you should know about Classified is that his name is actually classified, and not “Classified.”  He’s a highly-trained but cocky secret agent who underestimates the Penguins’ operation. Classified is the Alpha male of the tech-savvy team, and Skipper’s polar opposite. The casting of Benedict Cumberbatch, a celebrated and in-demand actor thanks to, among other performances, his work in the title role of the phenomenally popular BBC/PBS series “Sherlock,” came about almost three years ago, just before “Sherlock” debuted in the U.S.  Smith explains: “One of our crew is Australian, and the series had already aired there.  He told us that we should check out the work of this guy called Benedict Cumberbatch.  We saw ‘Sherlock’ when it arrived in the U.S., and we knew then he was a special talent and would be the perfect foil for Skipper. Benedict is so eloquent and has a fantastic voice that was perfect for Classified.”

The British actor reveals that Classified is “an all-action wolf who heads up The North Wind, which looks after animal welfare wherever it needs looking after.  He knows about Dave’s plot and Classified attempts to con the Penguins to reveal everything they know about their mutual adversary.”

“The North Wind team thinks they hold all the cards because they’re highly-trained, educated, have the best equipment, and nobody could ever top them,” Darnell continues.  “The Penguins are the underdogs.”  But Classified and the rest of the North Wind team soon learn that you underestimate Skipper & Co. at your own peril.  In fact, the conflicting teams are two sides of the same coin. “Everything about The North Wind is chic, professional, planned and rigorous, and everything about the Penguins is haphazard, gung ho machismo,” Cumberbatch explains.  “That’s why the two teams so complementary.  By the end of the film they really need each other’s help, because they’re even more powerful as a combined, elite force.”

Cumberbatch says he enjoyed having no inhibitions in portraying and researching the role.  Moreover, he embraced Classified’s skills and slick operation, as well as the character’s hidden but important vulnerabilities.  “Classified has to learn to abandon his intricate and gadget-laden planning and sometimes just run at the problem, like the Penguins do.  I like the idea of ‘unpacking’ a spy and making him a bit more human, even if he’s a wolf.  And I’ve never done that on screen before.”

Classified isn’t the only operative being “unpacked.”  He is joined in The North Wind by Short Fuse (Ken Jeong), a small seal who, though he looks like a plush toy, is as tough as any member of the team.  The North Wind’s explosives expert, Short Fuse has a volatile temper to match his vocational expertise.  Then there’s Eva (Annet Mahendru), an intelligence analyst and thrill-seeking, brainy beauty of an owl with a killer instinct.  Finally, Corporal (Peter Stomare), a polar bear who’s eight feet tall and armored in a half-ton of muscle, is the brawn of the Wind.

A Dreamworks Animation feature, “Penguins of Madagascar” opens November 26 in cinemas from 20^th Century Fox nationwide to be distributed by Warner Bros.

JOEL EDGERTON IS CONFLICTED MONARCH AND BROTHER TO MOSES IN STAGGERING EPIC “EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS”

From acclaimed director Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Prometheus) comes the epic adventure EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS, the story of one man’s daring courage to take on the might of an empire.  Using state of the art visual effects and 3D immersion, Scott brings new life to the story of the defiant leader Moses (Christian Bale) as he rises up against the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses (Joel Edgerton), setting 400,000 slaves on a monumental journey of escape from Egypt and its terrifying cycle of deadly plagues.

 

Filmed in 3D, Scott’s film tells the story of Moses, abandoned by a desperate mother as a baby after the Egyptian rulers orders the murder of all boys born to slaves. He is found in the bulrushes by the Pharaoh’s daughter and raised in the royal household, where he grows up alongside Ramses, the future monarch.

As a man, Moses has a vision and turns his back on his privileged life and leads his people, the Israelites, from enslavement. Scott’s film will feature ground-breaking special effects, including the plagues – visited upon Egypt and the parting of the Red Sea.

According to the Book of Exodus in the Bible, God inflicted ten plagues on Egypt as punishment for not releasing the children of Israel from slavery – these included frogs, flies, boils, hail stones and locusts, all of which feature in Scott’s movie. It made for some very interesting days filming, says Edgerton.

The central relationship of “Exodus: Gods and Kings” is between Moses and Ramses, who grew up as brothers.  Ramses becomes Pharaoh and Moses his most trusted advisor and second in command.  But when Ramses learns that Moses is actually a Hebrew, he expels his “brother” into the desert and to an almost certain death.  “Ramses personifies how absolute power corrupts absolutely,” says Joel Edgerton who takes on the role. “Ramses starts to believe he actually is a god, which creates a wonderful dynamic between Moses and him.”

Ramses is the story’s principal antagonist, but Scott and Edgerton wanted to give the character nuances and complexities that transcend stock villainy.  “Ramses has a strong , brotherly connection to Moses, so he’s very conflicted when Moses is revealed to be a Hebrew.  He also loves his wife Nefertari, and his young son, so that gives him important emotional shadings,” says the director.

Scott first encountered Edgerton years earlier, while casting his Crusades epic, “Kingdom of Heaven.”  The actor was deemed too young for the role then, but Scott continued to follow Edgerton’s career, particularly his work in the acclaimed independent drama Animal Kingdom. “Joel has flair, and he’s athletic, brooding, intellectual and very warm as well. He transposed himself elegantly into the demeanor of an Ancient Egyptian, acknowledging the period, without it feeling like ‘period.’ Ramses is a bad guy, with good emotional parts to his character, so that you are not sure whether to hate him or not. Joel is also very physical, so he provides a real sense of action and fury when needed.”

Bale hails Edgerton’s “tremendous commitment to the role.  I felt he had one of the most difficult parts in the film.  Joel captures all the arrogance of someone with limitless power, and all the insecurities of someone desperately trying to hold onto his position.”

Edgerton relished the role, especially its complexities.  “The most fascinating villain is someone who, in their own movie, would be the hero,” he explains. “I always feel if you can understand the bad guy, you can cheer for the hero even more. So I wanted to find that balance between doing my job as the villain of the piece, but give him humanity.  Amidst all the epic scenes of warfare, the big conflict here is the battle of wills between Ramses and Moses.”

Edgerton admits that Ramses has a huge ego, as expected from someone brought up to believe he is a living god. “He is unreasonable and lacks empathy,” says the actor. “Ramses is a tyrant and a dictator, but that was part of the beliefs of the times.”

Joel Edgerton has been on some big – very big – films in the past but nothing has compared to Ridley Scott’s epic adventure Exodus: Gods & Kings. “It’s definitely one of the biggest that I’ve ever been involved in. The scale of the sets, the amount of people around – the crew and the hundreds of extras we have on some days – and the epic scale of the story, is really staggering.”

Latest international trailer link:

“Exodus: Gods and Kings” opens December 5 nationwide from 20^th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros. in 2D, 3D and IMAX 3D