Raunchy 2000s Fantasy Comedy Leaving Netflix, Stream Before It’s Too Late

For those who haven’t seen the movie, Shrek follows the same-name anti-social and highly territorial ogre (Mike Myers) who loves the solitude provided by his swamp. His peaceful life is interrupted when Lord Farquaad (John Lithgow) of the nearby kingdom exiles all the fairy-tale creatures to his swamp and blackmails Shrek into rescuing a princess (Cameron Diaz) for him, who will, in turn, relocate the fairy creatures elsewhere. The disgruntled ogre accepts the quest, and is accompanied by a rather talkative Donkey (Eddie Murphy) as they both embark on a journey to rescue the princess.

We won’t reveal the details of the movie further to avoid spoiling it for those who haven’t watched it, but it’s important to discuss Shrek and its influence on animated movies, as well as the entire industry.

The movie was originally based on a same-name 1991 children’s picture book, whose rights were bought by none other than Steven Spielberg, who wanted to make a traditionally animated film. However, he ended up taking the project to the newly founded DreamWorks studio in 1994, with the project entering active development in 1995.

The development of Shrek wasn’t all that smooth; the original voice actor (Chris Farley) died in 1997 before completing work on the film, prompting DreamWorks to hire Mike Myers as a replacement—which was ultimately a great decision since the actor gave Shrek his Scottish accent. Additionally, the movie was supposed to be “filmed” using motion capture, but the end results were so poor that DreamWorks hired Pacific Data Images to complete the final animation.

The results, however, were great! The core of Shrek’s charm is the film’s parodying of other fairy tale adaptations, primarily animated Disney movies. It captured not only the hearts of the critics but also the hearts of the audiences, especially since the movie managed to not only parody Disney but also provide a moral message to the audiences while still being incredibly funny. Besides being a massive critical success, Shrek was also quite successful at the box office, with the animated movie earning $492 million against a $60 million budget.

It gave birth to a movie franchise, with three additional sequels and Shrek 5 in development, along with two spin-offs that centered on Puss in Boots. Shrek is widely regarded as one of the greatest animated movies ever made, and it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2020 by the United States Library of Congress—thus becoming the first movie of the 21^st century to be selected for preservation. Those interested in watching Shrek can stream the movie on Netflix before it leaves the platform on July 31.