Last Christmas, a little movie called Puss in Boots: The Last Wish surprised a lot of folks by grossing a mighty $185 million domestically. Its success was big enough that Dreamworks, whose animated films have lately underwhelmed at the box office, announced that they might be bringing back the Shrek series, which Puss was a spin-off from. Starting in 2001, the Shrek films, which followed Mike Myers’ lovable Ogre as he navigated a satirical fairytale kingdom with his faithful companions, Fiona (Cameron Diaz) and Donkey (Eddie Murphy), were smash hits. The first Shrek, whose charmingly old-school CGI animation seems archaic now, made a might $266 million, and the sequel, Shrek 2, was even bigger, earning $441 million and doubling it’s gross worldwide.
So why hasn’t there been a new Shrek movie since 2010? At the time, the common wisdom was that the series had run its course, with Shrek the Third earning mixed reviews (although it still made $322 million domestically). Shrek Forever After was a box office disappointment, earning “only” $238 million, which seems pretty high in our post-Covid world. Had these movies come later, one assumes Dreamworks would still be churning them out, as each movie made more internationally than the one that came before it. This franchise, which remains a perennial favourite, is a check that’s waiting to be cashed, so a revival seems inevitable. In this episode of What You Need to Know About This Franchise, we look back at the series, see how it was created and pick our favorite instalments.