Timeline-YATAD/Shrek

Shrek is a 2001 American 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 Yonatan Ashad Productions, Paramount Pictures, and DreamWorks Pictures in the United States on May 18, 2001, and grossed over $492 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.
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. A fifth Shrek film is in development. It is also regarded as one of the most influential animated films of the 2000s and one of the greatest animated films ever made. 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.
== Plot ==
Shrek is an anti-social and highly territorial ogre who loves the solitude of his swamp, and enjoys fending off mobs and intruders. His life is interrupted after the dwarfish Lord Farquaad of Duloc exiles a vast number of fairy-tale creatures, who inadvertently end up in the swamp. Angered by the intrusion, Shrek decides to visit Farquaad and demand they be moved elsewhere. He reluctantly allows a talkative Donkey, whom he saved from Farquaad's guards before, to tag along and guide him to Duloc.
Meanwhile, Farquaad is presented with the Magic Mirror, who tells him that he must marry a princess in order to become king. Farquaad chooses Princess Fiona, who is imprisoned in a castle guarded by a Dragon. Unwilling to rescue Fiona himself, he organizes a tournament in which the winner will receive the "privilege" of performing the task on his behalf. When Shrek and Donkey arrive at Duloc, Farquaad announces that whoever kills the ogre will be crowned the victor; however, Shrek and Donkey defeat Farquaad's knights with relative ease. Amused, Farquaad proclaims them champions, and agrees to relocate the fairy-tale creatures if Shrek rescues Fiona.
Shrek and Donkey travel to the castle and are attacked by the Dragon. Shrek locates Fiona, who is appalled by his lack of romanticism; they flee the castle after rescuing Donkey from the dragon. When Shrek removes his helmet and reveals he is an ogre, Fiona stubbornly refuses to go to Duloc, demanding Farquaad arrive in person to save her; Shrek carries her against her will. That night, after setting up camp, and with Fiona alone in a cave, Shrek admits to Donkey that he is antisocial because he grew frustrated after being constantly judged for his appearance. Fiona overhears this, and decides to be kind to Shrek. The next day, the three are harassed by Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men, with Fiona dispatching them easily using martial arts. Shrek becomes impressed with Fiona, and they begin to fall in love.
When the trio nears Duloc, Fiona takes shelter in a windmill for the evening. Donkey later enters alone and discovers that Fiona has transformed into an ogre. She explains she has been cursed since childhood, forced to transform into an ogre every night, and changing back at sunrise. She tells Donkey that only "true love's kiss" will break the spell and change her to "love's true form". Meanwhile, Shrek is about to confess his feelings to Fiona, when he overhears Fiona referring to herself as an "ugly beast". Believing that she is talking about him, Shrek angrily leaves and returns the next morning with Farquaad. Confused and hurt by Shrek's abrupt hostility, Fiona accepts Farquaad's marriage proposal and requests that they be married before nightfall.
Shrek abandons Donkey and returns to his now-vacated swamp, but quickly realizes that he feels miserable without Fiona. Donkey appears, chastises Shrek for his bad behavior and for jumping to conclusions, and encourages him to express his love to Fiona. The two reconcile, and quickly travel to Duloc by riding the Dragon, whom Donkey has befriended.
Shrek interrupts the wedding just before the ceremony ends, and tells Fiona that Farquaad is only marrying her to become king. The sun sets as Fiona transforms into an ogre in front of everyone, causing Shrek to understand what he overheard. Outraged and disgusted, Farquaad orders Shrek killed and Fiona re-imprisoned, so that he will still be king by technicality. The two are saved when the Dragon, ridden by Donkey, breaks in and devours Farquaad. Shrek and Fiona profess their love and share a kiss. Fiona's curse is broken; she is surprised to find she has remained an ogre, though Shrek reassures her that he still finds her beautiful. They marry in the swamp with the fairy-tale creatures in attendance, then leave for their honeymoon.
== 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
* Andrew Adamson as Duloc Mascot
* Bobby Block as Baby Bear from the Three Bears
* Michael Galasso as Peter Pan
== Production ==
=== Development ===
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 1991. 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 acquiring 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 how much should the film 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. Gary Trousdale and Simon Wells joined in 1992 to co-direct the film.
Some early sketches of Shrek's house were done between 1992 and 1993 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.
=== Casting ===
Nicolas Cage was initially offered the role of Shrek but he turned it down because he did not want to look like an ogre. In 2013, Cage explained furthermore: "When you're drawn, in a way it says more about how children are going to see you than anything else, and I so care about that." 
Chris Farley was initially hired to voice Shrek, and he had recorded nearly all of the dialogue for the character, but died in March 1994 before completing the project. A story reel featuring a sample of Farley's recorded dialogue was leaked to the public in August 2015. 
DreamWorks, Paramount Pictures, and The Yonatan Ashad Company then re-cast the voice role to Mike Myers, who insisted on some parts of the script rewrite, to leave no traces of Farley's version of Shrek. According to Myers, he wanted to voice the character "for two reasons: I wanted the opportunity to work with Jeffrey Katzenberg; and [the book is] a great story about accepting yourself for who you are."
=== Music ===
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== Release ==
=== Marketing ===
In 2000, IMAX released CyberWorld onto its branded large-screen theaters. It was a compilation film that featured stereoscopic conversions of various animated shorts and sequences, including the bar sequence in Antz. DreamWorks was so impressed by the technology used for the sequence's "stereoscopic translation", that the studio and IMAX decided to plan a big-screen 3D version of Shrek. The film would have been re-released during the Christmas season of 2001, or the following summer, after its conventional 2D release. The re-release would have also included new sequences and an alternate ending. Plans for this was dropped due to "creative changes" instituted by DreamWorks and resulted in a loss of $1.18 million, down from IMAX's profit of $3.24 million.
Radio Disney was told not to allow any ads for the film to air on the station, stating, "Due to recent initiatives with The Walt Disney Company, we are being asked not to align ourselves promotionally with this new release Shrek. Stations may accept spot dollars only in individual markets." The restriction was later relaxed to allow ads for the film's soundtrack album onto the network.
On May 7, 2001, Burger King began promotions for the film, giving out a selection of nine exclusive Candy Caddies based on the Shrek characters, in Big Kids Meal and Kids Meal orders. Ice cream chain Baskin-Robbins also ran an 8-week promotion of the film, selling products such as Shrek's Hot Sludge Sundae, a combination of Oreo Cookies 'n Cream ice cream, hot fudge, crushed chocolate cookies, whipped cream and squiggly gummy worms, and Shrek Freeze Frame Cake, featuring an image of Shrek and Donkey framed by sunflowers. This was to support the film's DVD/VHS release.
=== Home media ===
Shrek was released by Yonatan Ashad Home Entertainment, Paramount Home Entertainment, DreamWorks Home Entertainment on VHS and DVD on November 2, 2001. It surpassed Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace's record for becoming the fastest-selling DVD ever, selling 2.5 million copies within the first three days of release. Another 4.5 million copies were sold on VHS in the same timespan, making it the biggest opening weekend in retail video since The Lion King in 1995. Both releases included Shrek in the Swamp Karaoke Dance Party, a 3-minute musical short film, that takes up right after Shrek's ending, with film's characters performing a medley of modern pop songs.
Coincidentally, the film was released on video the same day that Pixar's Monsters, Inc. hit theaters. Since videos were traditionally released on Tuesdays, Disney's executives did not receive this well, saying that the move "seemed like an underhanded attempt to siphon off some of their film's steam". DreamWorks responded that it "simply shifted the release to a Friday to make it more of an event and predicted that it and other studios would do so more frequently with important films." Monsters, Inc. earned that weekend more than $62 million, breaking the record for an animated film, while Shrek's video release made more than $100 million, and eventually became the biggest selling DVD at the time with over 5.5 million sales. This broke the record previously held by Gladiator, another DreamWorks film. Shrek generated more than $420 million in revenue for DreamWorks on DVD and VHS, and has sold more than 21 million copies of the 23 million shipped by January 2002. Worldwide, more than 10 million Shrek DVDs have been sold by that point.
A 3D version of the film was released on Blu-ray 3D by Yonatan Ashad Home Entertainment and Paramount Home Entertainment on December 1, 2010, along with its sequels, and a regular 2D Blu-ray boxset of the series was released six days later.
In commemoration of the film's 20th anniversary, an Ultra HD Blu-ray edition was released on May 11, 2021, by Yonatan Ashad Home Entertainment and Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.
== Cultural references ==
In many places, the film references classic movies, predominantly those by Disney. When Tinker Bell falls on Donkey and he says "I can fly" and people around including the Three Little Pigs say "He can fly, he can fly"; this is a reference to Disney's Peter Pan. Donkey then says, while still flying, "You might have seen a house fly, maybe even a super fly, but I bet you ain't never seen a Donkey fly!". This scene is a reference to the Disney film Dumbo. The scene where Fiona is singing to the blue bird is a reference to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The transformation scene at the end of the film references Disney's Beauty and the Beast.
When Shrek crosses the bridge to the Castle and says, "That'll do, Donkey, that'll do", this is a reference to the movie Babe. The scene where Princess Fiona is fighting the Merry Men is a lengthy reference to the film The Matrix. At the end of the film, the Gingerbread Man at the end with a crutch (and one leg) says "God bless us, everyone" which is a reference to Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol.
In the scene where the Magic Mirror gives Lord Farquaad the option to marry three princesses, it parodies popular American television show The Dating Game featuring: Cinderella and Snow White. In addition, Lord Farquaad's theme park style kingdom Duloc heavily mimics Disneyland, even in so far as parodying the famous "It's a Small World" musical ride in the scene with the singing puppets. It has been suggested that Lord Farquaad himself is an unflattering parody of then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner, whom producer Katzenberg reportedly dislikes.
== Other media ==
=== Video games ===
Several video game adaptations of the film have been published on various game console platforms, including Shrek (2001, Xbox and GameCube), Shrek: Hassle at the Castle (2002), Shrek: Treasure Hunt (2002), Shrek: Extra Large (2002), Shrek: Super Party (2002) and Shrek SuperSlam (2005). Shrek was also included as a bonus unlockable character in the video game Tony Hawk's Underground 2 (2004).
=== Comics ===
Dark Horse Comics released in 2003 three thirty two page full color comic books featuring Shrek, Donkey and Fiona, Shrek #1, Shrek #2, and Shrek #3. The comics were written by Mark Evanier and illustrated by Ramon Bachs and Raul Fernandez.
Ape Entertainment has also released under KiZoic label five full color comic books, a fifty two page adaptation Shrek (2010), and four thirty two page books: Shrek #1 (2010), Shrek #2 (2010), Shrek #3 (2011), and Shrek #4 (2011).
=== Short films ===
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=== Sequel films ===
Two sequel films were released. 
=== Theme park attractions ===
Shrek 4-D, also known as Shrek 3-D, Shrek 4D Adventure, Shrek's Never Before Seen Adventure, and The Ghost of Lord Farquaad, is a 4-D film/ride at various theme parks around the world. It premiered in 2003 at Universal Studios Florida, and was released on DVD. The short takes place right after Shrek. Lord Farquaad returns from the dead to kidnap Princess Fiona and it is up to Shrek and Donkey to rescue her.
Far Far Away is one of the seven themed lands in Universal Studios Singapore, and it consists of many locations based on DreamWorks Animation fantasy films. The land was named after Fiona's kingdom in Shrek: Happily Ever After.
A Shrek themed attraction, called DreamWorks Tours Shrek's Adventure! London, opened in 2015 at London County Hall as the first of six attractions initially planned over nine years. This "Immersive Tunnel" from Simworx is built in collaboration with Merlin Entertainments, the 20,000 square feet (1,900 m2) live interactive walk-through adventure presents an original story written by DWA, along with a character courtyard, also featuring characters from several other DreamWorks Animation franchises.
=== Broadway musical ===
A musical version, based on the film, with music by Jeanine Tesori and a book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire, opened on Broadway on December 14, 2008, and closed January 3, 2010, running for a total of 441 performances. It starred 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. The Broadway production was recorded and released on DVD, Blu-ray and digital media. A North American Tour opened July 25, 2010, in Chicago. A London production opened in the West End on June 7, 2011. The musical received many Tony Award nominations and won the 2009 Tony Award for Best Costume Design. It received five Laurence Olivier Award nominations including Best New Musical.
=== Other media ===
In 2008, TBA.
A shot-for-shot fan remake titled Shrek Retold was released through 3GI Industries on November 29, 2018. The project was a collaboration of 200 filmmakers and mixes live action, hand-drawn animation, flash animation, CGI and various other art forms to recreate the film. The film is available on YouTube for free.
== Gallery ==
=== Concept art ===
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=== Storyboards ===
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== Transcript ==
: Main article: Timeline-YATAD/Shrek/Transcript
== Trivia ==
* TBA
Category:Movies