![]() Specifically, he hoped rival studios would try to replicate Deadpool’s success by making movies that were unique and that didn’t talk down to audiences. In the wake of Deadpool’s enormous box office earnings, director James Gunn took to social media to implore studio executives not to draw the wrong conclusions. Then again, it was also hard to imagine the wrongheaded lessons Hollywood would take away from Shrek’s success. RELATED: Every DreamWorks Animation Movie Ranked from Worst to Best In 2001, as Shrek sent audiences out of the theater with an infectiously energetic reprise of “I’m a Believer,” it was hard to imagine that this type of storytelling could ever grow stale. The grandeur in The Prince of Egypt was replaced by Shrek’s low-key road trip vibes and jokes about Donkey complimenting one of Shrek’s boulders. This included prior DreamWorks Animation efforts like The Prince of Egypt and The Road to El Dorado, which tried to do more adult-skewing versions of classic animated musicals with varying degrees of success. In this and countless other ways, Shrek was brazenly different from the default type of family-friendly animation at the time. It’s a concept typical animated kid’s fare had usually avoided but that Shrek tackled head-on. That kind of emotional vulnerability is always terrifying, whether you’re an animated ogre or a normal person. He didn’t want to leave his mucky domicile out of fear of “people me before they even know me.” There’s a terror in both Shrek and Fiona related to people discovering the true you. ![]() Unlike animated protagonists of the 90s who wanted to seek out adventure “in the great wide somewhere,” Shrek just wanted to go home to his swamp. On top of all that, centering the story on a farting ogre who made jokes about male genitalia further distanced the movie from the likes of Ariel or Hercules.Īnd then there were the feelings of isolation explored in the lead characters of Shrek. The fact that it treated staples of fairy tales (like the Gingerbread Man or Pinocchio) with irreverence rather than a wholesome hand was similarly fresh. Using pop songs in a period-era fairy tale setting alone was trailblazing. Though today the hallmarks of Shrek have become as familiar as the color of the sky due to rampant internet memes, there was a time when Shrek’s style of humor was outright mold-breaking. Whether they realized it or not, moviegoers were primed and ready for Shrek. Audiences were ready to see something different in kid-friendly animation. By the end of the decade, the cliches of these films were glaringly apparent. The resurgence of Disney’s animation department through titles like The Little Mermaid and Aladdin inspired a wave of knock-offs that ensured there was no shortage of princesses singing on a cliffside about their utmost desires. Movie theaters in the 1990s were dominated by animated fairy tale musicals.
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