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Get Four
|  | MAY 21, 2004
By Thane Peterson Shrek II: A Hoot for All Ages The sequel is sure to be a success, with its wide audience appeal worldwide. It's also a warning shot to Disney I went to see Shrek II twice on its opening day, May 19, and -- not-so-tough call -- I predict Dreamworks Studio's new animated feature will be a hit. At both showings -- one at 5:15 p.m., which was full of kids and parents, and at a later one where the audience was mainly twentysomething couples -- everyone laughed uproariously throughout the movie. This sequel has a shot at being just as popular as the 2001 original, which did nearly $500 million worldwide at the box office and ranks as the 6th highest-grossing cartoon and 37th highest-grossing movie of all time. It's off to a good start: The movie did nearly $11.8 million on its opening day, and since then, it has been expanded from 3,737 theaters to a record 4,163 theaters nationwide. Hollywood has a lot riding on Shrek II. It's the first sequel to a big-time animated feature to come out since Disney's Toy Story 2 in 1999. And according to the show-business trade Variety, movie execs are counting on Shrek II to add some box-office vim to what has been a lousy year. If it weren't for the maverick success of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, U.S. movie receipts would be off 12% through mid-May, vs. last year, Variety reports. Even including The Passion, total domestic ticket sales are down 2.9%. A big opening weekend for Shrek II would be hot start for the summer movie season. NEMO II? A successful Shrek II would be significant for another reason: It would illustrate just what a steep mountain Disney (DIS ) must climb to regain its preeminence in movie animation. Home on the Range, Disney's own big animated feature this year, was a dud. It cost $110 million to make but has only grossed $47.3 million in its first six weeks. Disney took an unspecified writedown on the movie -- as it did for The Alamo -- when it reported otherwise stellar quarterly financial results on May 12. In 2006, Disney's partnership with Steve Jobs's Pixar (PIXR ), the animation studio behind last year's hugely successful Finding Nemo, is ending. And Finding Nemo, which cost only $94 million to make and had worldwide box-office receipts of $853 million, is the top-grossing cartoon and 9th highest-grossing movie of all time. Disney says the two companies are now in negotiations to do a sequel. Pixar declines to comment. But if Disney and Pixar can't cut a deal, Disney's only choice is to go it alone using the latest digital techniques, which up to now Pixar has been providing. (Home on the Range will be Disney's last hand-drawn cartoon feature.) NEW CHARACTERS. For my money, Shrek II has the right formula for how an animated film ought to be done. It has only the flimsiest of plots yet manages to be captivating nonetheless. That's because it pulls off the classic feat any really successful cartoon must: It has a simple story with lots of slapstick humor to keep the kids amused, along with tons of double entendres, allusions to TV shows, movies, and pop songs, subtle visual jokes, and other elements that appeal to adults. Its fairy-tale characters and themes about loyalty and love are sufficiently universal to work in Europe, Asia, and other foreign markets. That's key to financial success -- both Shrek and Finding Nemo did about 60% of their sales outside the U.S. The familiar characters are all back, including Shrek, voiced by Mike Myers, Princess Fiona, done by Cameron Diaz, and Donkey, who is once again hilarious, thanks to Eddie Murphy. Shrek II also has some notable additions, such as a rapier-wielding Puss In Boots (Antonio Banderas) and wonderful cameos by Joan Rivers and Larry King, as, respectively, a Hollywood reporter and the Ugly Stepsister. Yup, that's right -- Larry King does the voice of Cinderella's Ugly Stepsister. One example of how the movie appeals to adults and kids: At one point, Pinocchio is suspended from a bunch of puppet strings while the theme from Mission Impossible plays. Shrek wants Pinocchio's nose to grow very long in order to help in rescuing a kidnapped Princess Fiona, so he forces the puppet to tell a lie. "Say you aren't wearing women's underwear," he says over and over. Each time Pinocchio says he isn't, his nose lengthens. That's the formula in a nutshell: Kids get the slapstick element while adults get a kick out of the more-subtle humor. A FADED LOOK. Just as appealing to me is Shrek II's visual complexity. Sometimes I was so busy looking at what was going on in the background that I forgot to pay attention to the main action. I found myself studying every mole, freckle, and hair on the characters' heads. And the physical environment contains seemingly endless detail -- such as the splashes of soup on the table when Shrek angrily hurls a spoon in the direction of his duplicitous father-in-law. The colors are so vivid they jump off the screen. In theory, I want to like hand-drawn features like Home on the Range better than those done entirely by computer, like Shrek II. But the truth is that Home on the Range looks faded and old-fashioned next to Shrek II. One thing is for sure: Hollywood will be producing a lot more digitally animated movies. A raft of new ones are due out late this year. But when will Finding Nemo II come out? And will Disney be able to go it alone if it decides to?  Peterson is a contributing editor at BusinessWeek Online. Follow his weekly Moveable Feast column, only on BusinessWeek Online Edited by Patricia O'Connell
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