Shrek

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Shrek
Official poster
Directed by	Andrew Adamson Vicky Jenson
Produced by	Jeffrey Katzenberg Aron Warner John H. Williams
Written by	Screenplay: Ted Elliott Terry Rossio Joe Stillman Roger S. H. Schulman Book: William Steig
Starring	Mike Myers Eddie Murphy Cameron Diaz John Lithgow Conrad Vernon
Music by	Harry Gregson-Williams John Powell
Editing by	Sim Evan-Jones
Studio	Pacific Data Images
Distributed by	Theatrical United International Pictures North American DreamWorks SKG Home Universal Pictures (through DreamWorks label until 2006) Paramount Pictures (2006–) Television CBS Television Distribution (2006–)
Release date(s)	United States May 18, 2001 Australia June 21, 2001 New Zealand June 28, 2001 United Kingdom June 29, 2001
Running time	91 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	US$60 million
Gross revenue	Worldwide $484,409,218[1]
Followed by	Shrek 2

Shrek is a 2001 computer-animated American comedy film, directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, and starring the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, and John Lithgow. Based on William Steig's 1990 fairy tale picture book Shrek!, the film was produced by DreamWorks Animation. Shrek was the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, a category introduced in 2001. It was released on DVD and VHS on September 4, 2001.

The film stars Mike Myers as a large, strong, solitude-loving, intimidating ogre named Shrek, from the German word "Schreck" meaning "terror" or Yiddish word שרעק, meaning "fear". Shrek also features Cameron Diaz as the beautiful but very down-to-earth and feisty Princess Fiona, Eddie Murphy as a talkative donkey named Donkey, and Lithgow as the villainous Lord Farquaad.

The film was extremely successful on release in 2001 and it helped establish DreamWorks as a prime competitor to Walt Disney Pictures in the field of feature film animation, particularly in computer animation. Furthermore, Shrek was made the mascot for the company's animation productions. It was critically acclaimed as an animated film worthy of adult interest, with many adult-oriented jokes and themes but a simple enough plot and humor to appeal to children. It made notable use of pop music—the soundtrack includes music by Smash Mouth, Eels, Joan Jett, The Proclaimers, Jason Wade, The Baha Men, and Rufus Wainwright (covering Leonard Cohen).

In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed its "Ten top Ten"— the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. Shrek was acknowledged as the eighth best film in the animated genre, and the only non-Disney-Pixar film on the top ten.^[2][3] Shrek was also ranked second in a Channel 4 poll of the "100 Greatest Family Films", losing out on the top spot to E.T..^[4]

[edit] Plot

Shrek, an ogre that has always enjoyed living in peaceful solitude in his swamp, finds his life disrupted when numerous fairy tale beings, including the talkative Donkey, are forced into the swamp by order of Lord Farquaad. Shrek decides to travel the country to see Farquaad to try to regain his privacy, with Donkey tagging along. The two make it to Farquaad's palace in DuLoc and come across a knight tournament to decide who will rescue Princess Fiona from a castle surrounded by lava and protected by a fire-breathing dragon who is called Dragon, so that Farquaad may marry her. Shrek and Donkey easily best the other knights, and Farquaad agrees to nullify his order if Shrek goes on to rescue Fiona, a deal that Shrek agrees to.

Shrek and Donkey travel to the castle and split up to find Fiona. Donkey manages to encounter the dragon, sweet-talking the beast to save himself when he finds out the dragon is female, and she takes a liking to Donkey, taking him back to her chambers. When Shrek finds Fiona, she is appalled at his lack of romanticism. As they are leaving, Shrek manages to save Donkey, caught in the dragon's tender love, and causing the dragon to become irate, chasing Shrek, Fiona, and Donkey out of the castle but unable to follow. At first, Fiona is thrilled to be rescued but quickly becomes disgusted to find out that Shrek is an ogre. The three make their return journey to Farquaad's palace, with Shrek and Fiona finding they have more in common with each other along the way, and falling in love. However, at night, Fiona refuses to camp with them, taking shelter in a nearby cave until morning.

The next night, Fiona takes shelter in a nearby windmill. When Donkey hears strange noises coming from the windmill, he finds that Fiona has turned into an ogre. Fiona explains that she was cursed as a child and turns into an ogre every night, which is why she was locked away in the castle, and that only a kiss from her true love will return her to her proper form. Shrek overhears them talking, and thinking they are talking about him being ugly, walks off, believing she cannot accept his appearance. Donkey promises Fiona to not tell Shrek, vowing to do it herself, but when the next morning comes, Lord Farquaad has arrived, led by Shrek, and he returns with her to the castle, while Shrek returns to the now-vacated swamp.

Shrek finds that despite his privacy he is miserable, and misses Fiona. Donkey shows up to tell him that Fiona will be getting married shortly, urging Shrek into action to gain Fiona's true love. They are able to travel to the fortress quickly thanks to Dragon, who escaped her confines and followed Donkey. They interrupt the wedding before Farquaad can kiss Fiona, but not before the sun sets, causing Fiona to turn into an ogre in front of everyone (this causes Shrek to realise the mistake he made earlier). Farquaad, furious and disgusted over the change, orders Shrek and Fiona killed, but Dragoness (A.K.A Dragon) bursts in and gobbles up Farquaad whole, causing the other knights to flee. Shrek and Fiona admit their love for each other and share a kiss; Fiona is bathed in light as her curse is broken, but leaving her as an ogre, a form she was not expecting but that Shrek finds beautiful. Shrek and Princess Fiona, who is now an ogress after her kiss with Shrek, get married and depart on their honeymoon (where Gingy quotes Charles Dickens's line from A Christmas Carol, "God bless us, every one"), while Donkey and Dragon continue their relationship.

[edit] Production

Robin Williams, who had worked for Jeffrey Katzenberg before in Aladdin and had had a bitter falling out with him and The Walt Disney Company over marketing agreements, has hinted in an interview that he refused a role in Shrek, because it would mean working for Katzenberg again. He would not state which role he had refused.^[5]

Chris Farley was originally going to do the voice for Shrek and recorded at least half of the dialogue for the character, but died before the project was completed. Dreamworks then re-cast the voice role to Mike Myers. After Myers had completed providing the voice for the character, and the film was well into production, he asked to re-record all of his lines in a Scottish accent similar to the one his mother had used when she told him bedtime stories. Myers had also employed a Scottish accent for a Saturday Night Live skit, and also for the characters Stuart MacKenzie in the motion picture So I Married an Axe Murderer, and Fat Bastard in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and Austin Powers in Goldmember.

Donkey was modeled after Pericles, a real miniature donkey from Barron Park, Palo Alto, California.^[6]

[edit] Cast

• Mike Myers - Shrek
• Eddie Murphy - Donkey
• Cameron Diaz - Princess Fiona
• John Lithgow - Lord Farquaad
• Conrad Vernon - Gingerbread Man
• Chris Miller - Geppetto/ Magic Mirror
• Cody Cameron - Pinocchio / The Three Little Pigs
• Michael Galasso - Peter Pan
• Christopher Knights and Simon J. Smith - Three Blind Mice / Thelonius
• Aron Warner - Big Bad Wolf
• Jim Cummings - Captain of the Guards
• Jerome De Guzman - Blind Mouse
• Vincent Cassel - Monsieur Hood (a French rendition of Robin Hood)
• Kathleen Freeman - Old Woman (Donkey's ex-owner)

Dragon, Snow White, Cinderella, Pied Piper, The Three Bears and several other characters are not speaking roles and are thus uncredited

[edit] Soundtrack

Two soundtracks were released for the original motion picture:

• Shrek: Music from the Original Motion Picture, the lyrical soundtrack by various artists
• Shrek: Original Motion Picture Score, the instrumental score, composed by Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell

[edit] Influences

Shrek is heavily influenced by the University of Notre Dame. The back of Shrek's shirt has a drawing of Notre Dame's famous Golden Dome, and Lord "Farquad"'s name is based on Carroll Hall, Notre Dame, where several of Shrek's producers attended. Additionally, the castle is modeled after the Hesburg Library at Notre Dame. Previous films and TV shows, such as Fractured Fairy Tales and The Princess Bride, have parodied the traditional fairy tale. However, Shrek itself has noticeably influenced the current generation of mainstream animated films. Particularly after Shrek 2, animated films began to incorporate more pop culture references and end-film musical numbers. Such elements can be seen in films like Ice Age 2, Robots, and Chicken Little. It also inspired a number of CG-animated films which also spoofed fairy tales, or other related story genres, often including adult-oriented humor, most of which weren't nearly as successful as Shrek, such as Happily N'Ever After, Doogal, Igor, and Hoodwinked!.^[7]

[edit] Other media

[edit] Books

Original story on which the film is based:

• Steig, William (1990). Shrek!, Sunburst Paperback. ISBN 0-374-46623-8

[edit] Video games

Several video game adaptations of Shrek have been published on various game console platforms.

• Shrek
• Shrek 2
• Shrek Smash n' Crash Racing
• Shrek: Hassle at the Castle
• Shrek Super Slam
• Shrek: Extra Large
• Shrek: Super Party
• Shrek the Third
• Shrek n' Roll

[edit] Comic books

• In 2003, Dark Horse Comics released a Shrek three-issue mini-series comic book adaptation, which was collected into a trade paperback.^[8]

[edit] Broadway

A musical version of Shrek, with music by Jeanine Tesori and a book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire, opened on Broadway at The Broadway Theatre beginning previews on November 9, 2008 and opening December 14, 2008. It stars Brian d'Arcy James in the title role, Sutton Foster as Princess Fiona, Christopher Sieber as Lord Farquaad, Daniel Breaker as Donkey, and John Tartaglia as Pinocchio and the Magic Mirror. The musical had a tryout in Seattle, Washington in August and September 2008. The musical received eight Tony Award nominations including Best Musical^[9] as well as twelve Drama Desk Awards nominations,^[10] ten Outer Critics Circle Award nominations,^[11] and three Drama League Award nominations.^[12] It won the Tony Award for Best Costume Design.

[edit] Reception

Shrek made $42,347,760 during an opening weekend averaging $11,805, making it the highest grossing film that week beating The Mummy Returns on its third week with $20 million. The film stayed in cinemas for more than 29 weeks (roughly over 206 days) with following Shrek 2 at 21, and Shrek the Third with 12. It made $267,665,011 domestically, international reaches $216,744,207, for a worldwide total of $484 million, making it the second highest-grossing animated film of the year behind Monsters Inc. It is the fourth highest-grossing film of 2001 behind Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Monsters Inc. It is the lowest-grossing film in the series.

[edit] Sequels and Spin-offs

• Shrek 4-D (2003) (Theme Park Attraction)
• Shrek 2 (2004)
• Shrek the Third (2007)
• Shrek the Halls (2007) (Short film)
• Shrek the Musical (2008) (Theatre)
• Shrek Forever After (2010)
• Puss in Boots: The Story of an Ogre Killer (2012)
• Shrek 5 (2013)

[edit] See also

• List of animated feature-length films
• List of computer-animated films
• List of fairy tale characters in Shrek

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Shrek

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Shrek

• Official website
• Shrek at the Internet Movie Database
• Shrek at Rotten Tomatoes
• Shrek at Metacritic
• Shrek at Box Office Mojo
• Tom Hester - Shrek Character Designer
• William Steig's web page describing the original 1990 story book
• Shrek Rendering Statistics