Between every new release, Shrek’s corporate masters saturated the market with ( mostly awful) video games, costumes, and birthday party kits. How did it become so strangely ubiquitous and weirdly potent? DreamWorks, the studio behind the film, certainly put a lot of effort into making sure their star ogre was everywhere, but a triumvirate of Shrek-related happenings in 20 might just mark the moment when the fans picked up Shrek’s momentum - for better or worse.Īfter the 2001 film that started it all, DreamWorks made sequels, spinoffs, and TV shorts, most of which couldn’t live up to the original. Shrek, which celebrated its 20th anniversary this year, went from “ scrappy, brash comedy” to, according to some, “ the pinnacle of human creation.” Over the past two decades, Shrek became a movie, a franchise, an unstoppable meme, a cruel god, and a generational symbol of love, life, and togetherness.
