Shrek: One of the most famous directors almost made a movie

Although the fifth part of the Shrek saga was recently announced, and the castle of Fort Lauderdale sneaked back into the scene in Puss in Boots 2 (released in cinemas last December), take a look at the origin of the famous green. An ogre who almost suffered a significantly different fate.

Indeed, in the 90s, before he became one of the flagships of the Dreamworks studios (which were then still taking their first steps on the animation scene), Shrek was almost one of the most famous filmmakers of his generation.

As recently recalled Screening, Shrek First is an illustrated book for children, signed by William Steig and published in 1990. The first to acquire the rights to the work, only a year after its publication, was… Steven Spielberg.

At the time, the director of ET, Jurassic Park and the Indiana Jones saga was expected to adapt the Green Ogre adventure himself, but in a slightly different style than that adopted by Dreamworks. The director wanted to make a Shrek movie in traditional animation (rather than synthetic images). As for the two main characters, he planned to entrust them to Bill Murray (Shrek) and Steve Martin (Donkey).

As we all know, Spielberg eventually left his project in the expert hands of the new studio he recently founded with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen: the aptly named Dreamworks.

With vocals by Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy (Alain Chabat and Med Hondo in the French version), Shrek quickly became Dreamworks’ biggest hit at the time ($488 million worldwide), as well as a figurehead for the studio that finally took off. The era of CGI (even if Ants already paved the way 3 years ago).

With three sequels (so far) and two spin-offs, including the biggest Dreamworks film of all time (Shrek 2 with $928 million in 2004), the Green Ogre saga has become one of the most profitable in animation.

(Re)discover all the hidden details of the movie…