When animated animals went off the rails.
In 2006, animated zoo animals made a surprisingly coordinated bid for adventure with Madagascar and The Wild. Both films follow pampered city creatures who find themselves thrust into the untamed wilderness, where survival is a lot less comfortable than life in the zoo. Madagascar thrives on manic humor, endlessly quotable characters, and fish-out-of-water comedy, while The Wild takes a more straightforward adventure route with a familiar setup that invited plenty of comparisons. Same animal escape plan, but only one left a lasting footprint in animation history.
Madagascar
Alex the lion, Marty the zebra, Melman the giraffe, and Gloria the hippo have spent their whole lives as pampered stars of New York's Central Park Zoo. When Marty's longing to see the wild leads him to break out, the others chase after him, and the four end up crated for shipment to a wildlife preserve in Africa. A penguin mutiny sends their crates overboard instead, and the group washes ashore on the island of Madagascar, where they must learn to fend for themselves among a colony of lemurs and adjust to a world with no keepers, no cages, and no scheduled mealtimes.
- Release Date
- May 27, 2005
- Tagline(s)
- Black, white, and out of sight.
- Director(s)
- Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath
- Writer(s)
- Mark Burton, Billy Frolick, Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath
- Leading Cast
- Ben Stiller , Chris Rock , David Schwimmer , Jada Pinkett Smith , Sacha Baron Cohen , Cedric the Entertainer , Andy Richter
- Budget
- $75,000,000
- Box Office
- $193,595,521 $348,468,325
- Rotten Tomatoes
- 55% 67%
- IMDB
- 6.9 / 10
- Trailer
- View Trailer
- Sources
- OMDb Rotten Tomatoes IMDB Wikipedia Box Office Mojo Rotten Tomatoes
The Wild
Samson, a lion who has spent his life as the star attraction of the Central Park Zoo, panics when his son Ryan is accidentally crated up and shipped off to the wilds of Africa. Samson sets out after him, joined by his zoo friends Benny the streetwise squirrel, Bridget the giraffe, Larry the anaconda, and Nigel the koala, and the group treks through New York's underworld before reaching the African savanna, where Ryan has fallen in with a pack of wildebeest planning a very different kind of welcome for him.
- Release Date
- April 14, 2006
- Tagline(s)
- A whole new breed of tourist.
- Director(s)
- Steve "Spaz" Williams
- Writer(s)
- Ed Decter, John J. Strauss, Mark Gibson, Philip Halprin
- Leading Cast
- Kiefer Sutherland , Jim Belushi , Eddie Izzard , Janeane Garofalo , William Shatner , Richard Kind , Greg Cipes , Patrick Warburton
- Budget
- $80,000,000
- Box Office
- $37,384,046 $64,954,469
- Rotten Tomatoes
- 18% 36%
- IMDB
- 5.2 / 10
- Trailer
- View Trailer
- Sources
- OMDb Rotten Tomatoes IMDB Wikipedia Box Office Mojo Rotten Tomatoes
