Penguins are quite the cinematic bunch, as 20th Century Fox has landed film rights to the 1938 children’s book Mr. Popper’s Penguins.

The book followed Mr. Popper, a house painter whose dreams of Arctic exploration prompt him to write letters to real explorers. One of them sends him a penguin, which he keeps in an icebox. Before you know it – he has a litter of 12 beaked birds, which prompts him to form Popper’s Performing Penguins, a stage act that goes on tour and creates mayhem at every stop.

It is being adapted to the screen by Sean Anders and John Morris (Sex Drive); John Davis will produce.