'Shrek' At 20: How The Big Green Ogre Became A Smash Hit For Dreamworks

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the theatrical release of the animated feature film “Shrek,” and the classic movie found itself trending anew across Twitter Inc TWTR as fans happily recall the green ogre’s big-screen adventures.

While social media denizens tweet out their handmade drawings and often idiosyncratic views on the film, it is worth noting the business story behind “Shrek.”

A New Animation Force: “Shrek” was the fifth feature film produced by Dreamworks Animation, a division of the production company Dreamworks founded in 1994 by Jeffrey Katzenberg, a former executive at Walt Disney Co DIS, filmmaker Steven Spielberg and producer David Geffen.

Dreamworks Animation marked the first time that a studio other than Disney offered a slate of feature-length animated films. UPA, which produced Mr. Magoo and Gerald McBoing-Boing shorts, and Hanna-Barbera, which focused on television productions, dabbled with feature films but never found a secure niche in the genre. Animator Ralph Bakshi independently produced a scattershot output of adult-themed films in the 1970s and 1980s while relying on different distributors to get the films into theaters.

Three of Dreamworks Animation’s previous titles — “Antz” (1998), “Prince of Egypt” (1998) and “Chicken Run” (2000) — were successful at the box office, but never generated the franchise opportunities Disney created with its releases. A fourth film, “The Road to El Dorado,” (2000), was a commercial failure.

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“Shrek” seemed to be on the road to failure during its production. The initial concept of a hybrid film mixing CG animation and live action resulted in footage shot over a year-and-a-half period, but that effort was received poorly in initial test screenings and was thrown out in favor of a CG-only approach, which required all work to start from scratch.

“Saturday Night Live” star Chris Farley was the original voice of Shrek, but he died before he finished recording his part. Farley’s work was jettisoned and he was replaced by fellow “SNL” alum Mike Myers, who recorded his role and then insisted on re-recording his entire performance with a Scottish accent, thus driving up production costs. Janeane Garofalo, the original choice to play Princess Fiona, was abruptly fired before her recording began. The actress claimed she was never told why her services were no longer needed.

The Post-“Shrek” Period: “Shrek” premiered on May 18, 2001, to strong reviews and stronger box office with the $60 million production grossing nearly $488 million and becoming the first winner of the Academy Award category for Best Animated Feature Film. The soundtrack topped the Billboard chart and the production spurred sequels, a Broadway musical and a wide array of merchandise.

In 2004, Dreamworks Animation was spun off as a publicly-traded company. The studio continued to produce popular films, including franchises based on “Madagascar” (2005), “Kung Fu Panda” (2008) and “How to Train Your Dragon” (2010).

In 2016, Dreamworks Animation was acquired by NBCUniversal, now a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation CMCSA. Its next film, “Spirit Untamed,” is based on the Netflix Inc NFLX series “Spirit Riding Free” and is scheduled for a June 4 theatrical release.

(Photo courtesy Dreamworks Animation.)