Forget Otters: Watch Benedict Cumberbatch Be a Wolf in the ‘Penguins of Madagascar’ Trailer

While it may be a popular internet meme to compare Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch to an otter, the actor’s going a bit bigger for his first animated role. He’ll be lending his voice to a “suave, debonair” wolf with some rather dramatic eyebrows in upcoming children’s flick The Penguins of Madagascar, a spin-off from the popular Dreamworks Madagascar franchise, which thus far has comprised three movies’ worth of various zoo animals getting in all sorts of capers.

The Penguins spin-off finally gives what is arguably the best part of the Madagascar films their own movie, which will follow the adventures of the special-ops group of the flightless birds who fight, blow stuff up and get in all sorts of general trouble.

Cumberbatch voices a wolf named Classified, leader of a covert group of animals known as the North Wind. He is assisted by a seal voiced by Ken Jeong, an owl voiced by Annet Mahendru and a bear voiced by Peter Stormare. 

Apparently John Malkovitch and Andy Richter are also part of this voice cast, though it doesn’t sound as though they’re any of the characters in this trailer.  (Google tells me that Malkovitch is voicing an octopus called Octavius Brine, who has it out for the amazing penguin quartet. Um, awesome.)

Watch for yourselves below: 

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Confession time: I am ridiculously excited about this. You all know how I feel about Cumberbatch generally, but I love, love, love the Madagascar penguins. The movies as a whole I can take or leave, but if someone made a supercut of just the penguins, I’d buy it. Bring this thing on, I say.

The film debuts in the US on November 26 and in the UK on December 5.

Is anyone else looking forward to this? Thoughts on Cumberbatch as a wolf? (Sad he’s not an otter?)