20 facts you might not know about 'Shrek'

Not since Mrs. Doubtfire has a hit movie elicited more of a, “Wait, that was a book?” reaction. Indeed, in 1990, William Steig published a picture book called Shrek! that did not exactly rival Goodnight Moon on the popularity front. Of course, after his book was adapted into a massive movie franchise, starting with the first film in 2001, Steig is shrugging it off all the way to the bank.

There must have been something to Shrek, because Spielberg snapped up the rights to Shrek in 1991, right after the book came out. He wanted to make a traditionally animated film of it. However, Spielberg never did anything – he was too busy winning Oscars and changing the film industry with Jurassic Park – and so he lost the rights, which were then snapped up by Spielberg’s future business partner, Jeffrey Katzenberg at Dreamworks.

Spielberg was serious enough about Shrek to have earmarked a couple actors to provide their voices to his theoretical film. He had Bill Murray in mind for Shrek, and Steve Martin as his choice for Donkey.

There are four credited screenwriters on Shrek, as well as co-directors. There were always co-directors in the mix, but originally they were Andrew Adamson and Kelly Ashbury. However, Ashbury only lasted a year before leaving to direct Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. Vicky Jenson took over for Ashbury. There were apparently no hard feelings, though. Ashbury co-directed Shrek 2.

Animated movies take a lot of hands on deck. The co-directors wanted to make things simple. They decided to split the film in half, so that the crew would know who to go to with questions on specific sequences. Of course, that worked better in theory than in practice. Adamson said both he and Jenson were “kinda control freaks” who “both ended up doing a lot of everything.”

The first actor approached to play Shrek? None other than Nicolas Cage. In the days before he took on seemingly every movie he was offered, though, Cage turned it down. He gave his reasoning many years later, in 2013, telling TODAY, “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.” Yeah, that’s appropriately Cage-y logic.

Dreamworks found their actor to voice Shrek, and his name was Chris Farley. Farley started recording the dialogue, and in fact almost finished recording his dialogue. Then, of course, Farley tragically died of an overdose in 1997. Since he did not finish the recording, the Farley version of Shrek was impossible to release.

When Farley died, the production turned to Mike Myers to voice Shrek. However, Myers did not want to simply replace his fellow Saturday Night Live alum. The actor asked for the script to be completely rewritten until every trace of “Farley’s version” of Shrek was gone.

Myers finished recording all his dialogue, and then he got to watch a rough cut of the movie in 2000. His reaction? “Hey, I should redo all my lines in a different voice,” or something to that effect. That’s not a direct quote. He wanted to do the character with a Scottish accent, which is how he remembered his mom telling him fairytales as a kid. Katzenberg loved the idea, and so, the Shrek we all know got his trademark brogue.

When Farley was going to play Shrek, the voice artist for Princess Fiona was Janeane Garofalo. Then, she was fired and replaced by Cameron Diaz. Evidently, nobody ever told Garofalo why she got the axe.

Shrek is teeming with storybook and fairytale characters. Teeming, we say! And yet, some didn’t end up making it. Early plans called for both Goldilocks and Sleeping Beauty to be included, but ultimately, they were axed from the plot.

Sometimes, animators use real-life inspirations for a character’s look. According to Raman Hui, the supervising animator who designed the character, Fiona isn’t inspired by any specific person. Maybe that’s why it took so long to figure her out. Apparently 100 models of Fiona were done before the directors decided on the one they wanted.

Shrek’s swamp shack is indicative of who he is as a character, but there were other options. They also considered having him live in a garbage dump on the outskirts of a human town, or possibly having him live with his parents and keeping rotting fish in his bedroom for some reason.

Shrek is the biggest success Dreamworks has ever had on the animation front. When the first film was being made, though, it did not necessarily have prestige. Apparently, animators who were not cutting it on other projects were reassigned to work on Shrek. This was referred to as being sent to “the Gulag,” or simply as being “Shreked.”

Originally, Dreamworks was toying with the idea of doing a mix of live action and CGI animation, kind of like a modern version of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. In fact, they spent a year-and-a-half researching it, before finally getting to a test run. Katzenberg’s take after all that work? “It looked terrible…we didn’t like it.” That was the end of that.

Always and forever, Shrek and “All Star” by Smashmouth will go hand-in-hand, living happily ever after in meme glory. 

On top of that, though, the film ends with Smashmouth’s cover of “I’m a Believer," with all the characters from the movie hanging out. This was a late addition. Originally, the film was just going to end storybook style with the book closing on Shrek and Fiona together.

Dreamworks had a lot of money in Shrek, to the tune of $60 million, plus marketing costs. Would the bet pay off? You’d better believe it. The movie went on to make $267.7 million domestically, and $484.4 million worldwide. It was the fourth-highest-grossing film worldwide in 2001, behind only Pixar’s Monster’s Inc. and the first installments of the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter franchises.

For years, there was no Academy Award for animated features. Finally, that changed. Films from 2001 competed for the first-ever Best Animated Feature Oscar. While Monster’s Inc. won at the box office, it’s Shrek that won the very first Best Animated Feature award. It also got a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination for good measure.

Of course Shrek got a sequel, one which also earned an Oscar nomination. That wasn’t the end of it, though. There were two more direct Shrek sequels, which raked in a ton more cash. Then, there’s also the Puss in Boots spinoff. Oh, and don’t forget the TV specials such as Shrek the Halls and Scared Shrekless. There have been rumors of a fifth Shrek movie, but so far, nothing has come to fruition.

Somehow, someway, Shrek came to Broadway. A musical stage adaptation was put together, and yes, the makeup for Shrek looks totally nuts. And yet, they got actors like Brian d’Arcy James and Sutton Foster to appear in the original cast. Shrek the Musical ran on Broadway from 2008 until 2010, before going on a nationwide tour. It was nominated for eight Tonys, winning for Best Costume Design.