but ultimately sensitive green ogre, a lovely red-haired princess with sass and
considerable kung-fu prowess, and a talking donkey aptly named Donkey. Steig
used his book to turn many of our culture’s cherished fairy tale characters on
their heads, including revised interpretations of Pinocchio, the Gingerbread
Man, and the Three Little Pigs. The colorful picture-book, Shrek, enjoyed
nominal success in young reading circles and classrooms. But it would be another
11 years before the franchise experienced its greatest success-as a computer
animated film series.
The first film, Shrek, debuted in 2001 and
starred Mike Myers as the voice of Shrek, Cameron Diaz as Princess Fiona and
Eddie Murphy as Donkey. The film grossed $42,347,760 in its opening weekend and
boasted a total domestic gross of $267,665,011. The film’s extreme popularity
yielded tons of collectibles and toys including fast-food snack toy tie-ins,
watches, clothes, plush toys, snow globes, lunch boxes and more.
Three
years later, Dreamworks released Shrek 2, which picked up where the first
film left off, with an ogre-faced Princess Fiona and Shrek as newlyweds. This
sequel, featuring a scene-stealing Puss in Boots voiced by Antonio Banderas, far
surpassed the original film in opening weekend ticket sales. In fact, Shrek
2 became the second-largest three-day opener in U.S. history with a gross of
$108 million. It also holds the record as the highest grossing animated film of
all time, with a total box office gross of $40 million domestically.
A
third film, Shrek 3, is slated for 2007 release.
