Releases and Responses
The first screening of the film was at the Sundance Film Festival in the United States on 21 January 2005. It was released in France the next week, on 26 January, where it earned a 4-star rating from AlloCiné, and was beaten at the box office only by The Aviator during its opening week.
The original French version was released in Quebec. Subsequently, an English language version was released in the rest of North America on 24 June 2005, drawing praise from most critics who found it both informative and charming. It has received a 94% "fresh" rating with the consensus "Only the hardened soul won't be moved by this heartwarming doc" on the website Rotten Tomatoes, which collects film reviews. The movie-going public apparently agreed with that assessment, as the film distinguished itself as one of the most successful films of the season on a per-theatre basis: it became the second most successful documentary released in North America, after Fahrenheit 9/11, grossing over $77 million in the United States and Canada (in nominal dollars, from 1982 to the present.) It grossed over $127 million worldwide. It's the only movie from Warner Independent to be rated G by the MPAA.
The film was released on DVD in France on 26 July 2005. The DVD extras address some of the criticisms the film had attracted, most notably by reframing the film as a scientific study and adding facts to what would otherwise have been a family film. This Region 2 release featured no English audio tracks or subtitles.
An extra on the DVD issue was the controversial 1948 Bugs Bunny cartoon Frigid Hare, in which Bugs visits the South Pole and meets a young penguin fleeing an Eskimo hunter. The cartoon is not frequently seen because of its stereotypical depiction of the Inuit hunter, but it was included here uncut and uncensored.
In November 2006, the film was adapted into a video game by DSI Games for the Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance platforms. It features Lemmings-like gameplay.
In 2007, a direct-to-DVD parody written and directed by Bob Saget called Farce of the Penguins was released. It is narrated by Samuel L. Jackson and features other stars providing voice-overs for the penguins. Although the film uses footage from actual nature documentaries about penguins, the parody was not allowed to include footage from March of the Penguins itself.
Read more about this topic: March Of The Penguins
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