Shrek Film Details
Shrek is a 2001 American computer-animated fantasy comedy film loosely based on the 1990 children’s picture book of the same name by William Steig. Directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson (in their feature directorial debuts) and written by Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Joe Stillman, and Roger S. H. Schulman, it is the first installment in the Shrek film series. The film stars Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, and John Lithgow. In the film, an embittered ogre named Shrek (Myers) finds his home in the swamp overrun by fairy tale creatures banished by the obsessive ruler Lord Farquaad (Lithgow). With the help of Donkey (Murphy), Shrek makes a pact with Farquaad to rescue Princess Fiona (Diaz) in exchange for regaining control of his swamp.
After purchasing rights to Steig’s book in 1991, Steven Spielberg sought to produce a traditionally-animated film adaptation, but John H. Williams convinced him to bring the project to the newly founded DreamWorks in 1994. Jeffrey Katzenberg, along with Williams and Aron Warner, began development on Shrek in 1995, immediately following the studio’s purchase of the rights from Spielberg. Chris Farley was cast as the voice for the title character, recording most of the required dialogue, but died in 1997 before his work on the film was finished; Myers was hired to replace him, and gave Shrek his Scottish accent. The film was initially intended to be created using motion capture, but after poor test results, the studio hired Pacific Data Images to complete the final computer animation. Shrek parodies other fairy tale adaptations, primarily animated Disney films.
Shrek premiered at the Mann Village Theatre In Westwood, and was later shown at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d’Or, making it the first animated film since Disney’s Peter Pan (1953) to be chosen to do so. The film was theatrically released by DreamWorks Pictures in the United States on May 18, 2001, and grossed over $491 million worldwide, becoming the fourth highest-grossing film of 2001. It was widely praised by critics for its animation, voice performances, soundtrack, writing and humor, which they noted catered to both adults and children. Shrek was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and won the first ever Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. It earned six nominations at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), winning for Best Adapted Screenplay.
The film’s success helped establish DreamWorks Animation as a competitor to Pixar in feature film computer animation. Three sequels have been released—Shrek 2 (2004), Shrek the Third (2007), and Shrek Forever After (2010)—along with two spin-off films—Puss in Boots (2011) and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022)—and other productions in the Shrek franchise. It is also regarded as one of the most influential animated films of the 2000s. The United States Library of Congress selected Shrek for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2020, becoming the first animated film of the 21st century to be preserved.
STORY
PRODUCTION
Development
At the time DreamWorks Pictures was founded, producer John H. Williams got hold of the book from his children and when he brought it to DreamWorks, it caught Jeffrey Katzenberg’s attention and the studio decided to make it into a film. Recounting the inspiration of making the film, Williams said:
Every development deal starts with a pitch and my pitch came from my then kindergartner, in collaboration with his pre-school brother. Upon our second reading of Shrek, the kindergartner started quoting large segments of the book pretending he could read them. Even as an adult, I thought Shrek was outrageous, irreverent, iconoclastic, gross, and just a lot of fun. He was a great movie character in search of a movie.
After buying the rights to the film, Katzenberg quickly put it in active development in November 1995. Steven Spielberg had thought about making a traditionally animated film adaptation of the book before, when he bought the rights to the book in 1991 before the founding of DreamWorks, where Bill Murray would play Shrek and Steve Martin would play Donkey. In the beginning of production, co-director Andrew Adamson refused to be intimidated by Katzenberg and had an argument with him about how much the film should appeal to adults. Katzenberg wanted both audiences, but he deemed some of Adamson’s ideas, such as adding sexual jokes and Guns N’ Roses music to the soundtrack, to be too outrageous. Adamson and Kelly Asbury joined in 1997 to co-direct the film. However, Asbury left a year later for work on the 2002 film Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, and was replaced with story artist Vicky Jenson, although Asbury would later co-direct the sequel. Both Adamson and Jenson decided to work on the film in half, so the crew could at least know whom to go to with specific detail questions about the film’s sequences; “We both ended up doing a lot of everything,” Adamson said. “We’re both kinda control freaks, and we both wanted to do everything.”
Some early sketches of Shrek’s house were done between 1996 and 1997 using Photoshop, with the sketches showing Shrek first living in a garbage dump near a human village called Wart Creek. It was also thought one time that he lived with his parents and kept rotting fish in his bedroom. Donkey was modeled after Pericles (born 1994; also known as Perry), a real miniature donkey from Barron Park in Palo Alto, California. Raman Hui, supervising animator of Shrek, stated that Fiona “wasn’t based on any real person” and he did many different sketches for her. He had done over 100 sculptures of Fiona before the directors chose the final design. In early development, the art directors visited Hearst Castle, Stratford upon Avon, and Dordogne for inspiration. Art Director Douglas Rogers visited a magnolia plantation in Charleston, South Carolina, for inspiration of Shrek’s swamp. Planned characters not used in the film include Goldilocks and Sleeping Beauty.
During production, animators who failed while working on other projects, such as The Prince of Egypt, were often sent to work on Shrek. The reassignment was known as being “Shreked” and being sent to “the Gulag”.
CAST
- Mike Myers as:
- Shrek
- One of the Three Blind Mice
- Eddie Murphy as Donkey
- Cameron Diaz as Princess Fiona
- John Lithgow as Lord Farquaad
- Vincent Cassel as “Monsieur” Robin Hood
- Conrad Vernon as Gingerbread Man
- Chris Miller as:
- Magic Mirror
- Geppetto
- Cody Cameron as:
- Pinocchio
- The Three Little Pigs
- Simon J. Smith as Blind Mouse
- Christopher Knights as:
- Thelonius
- One of the Three Blind Mice
- Aron Warner as Big Bad Wolf
- Jim Cummings as Captain of the Guards
- Kathleen Freeman as Old Woman (Donkey’s ex-owner) This was Freeman’s last film role before her death.
- Andrew Adamson as Duloc Mascot (a man dressed in a suit that looks like Lord Farquaad)
- Bobby Block as Baby Bear from the Three Bears
- Michael Galasso as Peter Pan
RELEASE
April 22, 2001
.Games 
– https://www.gamingwap.com
Films 
– https://www.gamingwap.com/films
Application 
– https://www.gamingwap.com/application
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/page
