Inside Chris Farley’s Lost Version of Shrek

when Shrek was released in 2001 it was not only a massive hit at the box office but it was a pop culture phenomenon too spawning several sequels and spinoffs while also winning the first ever Oscar given to a CG animated film stealing pixars Thunder who had popularized the genre with hits like Toy Story in a bugs life however it's possible none of this would have ever happened as Chris Farley was originally cast to voice the character before he tragically passed away and his version of Shrek was very different from that of Mike Meyers as it was specifically tailored to Farley so so let's dive in and take a look at what could have been the original Chris Farley version of Shrek du the king of cartoons William steeg began drawing cartoons and ads for the New Yorker in 1930 however at the ripe old age of 61 when most people are thinking about retiring St pivoted to writing children's books as he grew disillusioned with his career of drawing ads one of the books he would write would be Shrek which Steven Spielberg would promptly snatch the writes up to in 1991 planning to produce a traditional handdrawn animated movie through his amation Studio that would star Bill Murray as Shrek and Steve Martin as donkey this wouldn't get very far however and with the Breakthrough of CG animated films in the mid 9s Shrek would move to Spielberg's newly formed Studio DreamWorks to be made as a computer animated film production designer Barry Jackson who had recently broken into the industry as a concept designer on cool world was hired along with several others to be responsible for Designing the look of the movie at the time Jeffrey kenberg who was running Greenworks animation wanted to create serious animated films for adults and imagine Shrek is a dark and edgy movie so the team turned to comic book artist Mike pluge famous for Designing the look of Ghost Rider to design Shrek the environments were created to look dark and ominous resembling something akin to a Tim Burton movie rather than the bright and colorful movie we'd end up with however before the team could go any further DreamWorks wanted to see a test animation this being the early days of computer animation to create it DreamWorks turned to a group of college friends who had come together to form a performance capture computer animation company called propeller head design which included a then unknown JJ Abrams the test would feature an actor in a fat suit performing motion capture of Shrek dancing and singing to James Browns I got you as he makes his way through a medieval alley before being held up by a Mugger after Jeffrey kenberg saw the test footage he was appalled and worried that Shrek looked too creepy and complained that the atmosphere was too dark and gloomy realizing he wanted to attract a broader audience kenberg fired most of the team and decided to start from scratch he would turn to PDI short for Pacific data images to take over who the studio had hired to animate ants which was still in production the Shrek script went through over 20 different drafts with numerous changes made to the story over the course of development but the original story featured a younger teenage version of the ogre who lived with his parents and didn't want to follow the family business of frightening people as he was insecure about his appearance as a scary looking monster this version of Shrek wanted to help people and long to be liked with aspirations of becoming a knight Shrek also would have met donkey while saving him from a witch who had given him the ability to speak speak and Princess Fiona in this earlier version was born as an ogis which is why she's locked up in a tower as her parents lied to the public and told them she was a beautiful princess however a witch gives Fiona a potion that allows her to become Human by day and ogre at night Fiona's backstory originally was going to be shown in an elaborate opening sequence but it was eventually scrapped because it was deemed too depressing to voice Shrek DreamWorks first approached Nicholas Cage but he turned it down as he worried that children would see him as a scary ogre instead following his run on SNL and haunt the success of the 1995 hit Tommy Boy Chris Farley was emerging as a leading man which prompted the producers of Shrek to cast him as the voice of the Title Character Farley had been cast during the rejected motion capture test animation period And Thus when animating the character for that test animation the team and visioned him like a bull in a china shop similar to Farley's past roles however this is not exactly how Farley would approach the character like Shrek Farley was good-natured but deeply sensitive about his appearance and long to be seen and appreciated Beyond it for example the the famous SNL chip Andale skid has been criticized over the years by those close to Farley for feeding into his fears and insecurities about himself former SNL writer Bob Odin Kirk is on record saying that I know it confirmed Chris's worst instincts about being funny which is how he proved his worth that getting laughed at was as good as getting a laugh I feel I can see it on his face the moment when he rips his shirt off Farley would funnel these feelings into his portrayal of Shrek infusing with a shyness and an air of vulnerability they judge me before they even know me my folks always told me that everyone loves ogres and because Farley couldn't rely on his physical comedy for those louder moments he had to express himself using his voice no I'm an ogre doesn't that bother you at all unfortunately with his line somewhere between 80 to 95% recorded Farley would tragically dive in overdose in his Chicago Apartment Farley's brother John was then asked if he would come in and record the rest of Shrek's lines as he could imitate Chris's voice but Jon couldn't bring himself to do it as he was too torn up about his brother's passing at the time the producers then considered possibly bringing in a Chris Farley impersonator but decided against it before debating if they should just scrap the entire project which by this point have been plagued by issues and what issues you ask besides the failed test animation which Not only was a giant waste of money but forced the project to be started over from scratch Shrek saw a revolving door of writers directors and Talent two of those writers were Ted Elliot and Terry rossio who famously wrote the canceled Godzilla 94 script animators who are not cutting it on other DreamWorks projects like Prince of Egypt were reassigned or banished to work on Shrek's punishment this was referred internally at DreamWorks as being sent to the goolag or being shreked the staff was like the Island of Misfit Toys as Shrek was seen as DreamWorks redheaded stepchild that nobody wanted to work on nobody took seriously and nobody thought would be successful ironically when Shrek came out it Not only was a huge financial success but it also single-handedly saved Dreamworks Animation after Financial disappointments like The Prince of Egypt and the road to El Dorado when the project moved to PDI to be animated firsttime kiwi director Andrew Adamson a PDI special effects director took over as director alongside Vicky Jensen who had worked on The Road to El Dorado and was promoted to co-director after the other co-director Kelly Asbury left to direct spirit this is when the story began to evolve into the movie we all know as both directors felt the story had been geared towards Chris Farley and when he went the story kind of went with him forcing them to rework it the sentiment was echoed by the actor they cast to replace Farley Mike Myers who brought a decidedly different energy to the character Myers experimented with several different accents to try and find the right fit for the ogre allegedly he started out doing a Scottish accent but it was much thicker than the one in the finished film more closely resembling the character fat bastard from Austin Powers he also experimented using his SNL loar of the Hill People accent and even did a Chris Farley impression at one point which eventually evolved into something resembling Jackie Gleason from The Honeymooners eventually he'd record the film in his native Canadian accent basically his normal voice but people felt it just wasn't as funny as when he was experimenting with a Scottish accent prompting Myers to request to re-record all of his lines with it modeling his performance on how he remembered his parents telling him fairy tales as a kid and while Myers wouldn't be paid any additional money to re-record his lines this decision would end up costing DreamWorks an additional $4 million as they had to reanimate tx's mouth in order to sync up with a re-recorded dialogue as well as anime additional improvisations and ad libs Myers would make with the Scottish accent Shrek would be redesigned too in order to make him look a little more like Myers and less like Farley adding Myers bushy eyebrows and trimming Shrek's weight back Chris Farley wasn't the only actor recast either Janine garao was originally cast as Princess Fiona and even recorded all of her lines after Chris Farley passed away however Garo would be fired and replaced by Cameron Diaz and while Garo has stated that she was never given a reason for why she was replaced it's possible that she was initially hired as a counter to Farley's upbeat and hopeful version of Shrek since Gara is known for her sarcasm with Meers replacing Farley and reshaping the character it's possible that directors felt galo's cynical nature was no longer the right fit alongside him while Mike Myers did an absolutely phenomenal job voicing the cartoon ogre had Chris Farley lived voicing Shrek could have changed the direction of his career by revealing a softer side to him and showcasing a dimension of his talent that audiences had only seen glimpses of before thanks for watching everybody and 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Channel: Bullets & Blockbusters

Views: 124,734

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Id: pveP6X6nnFE

Length: 8min 32sec (512 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 03 2024