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May 03
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Film | Timberlake to join Shrek 3 cast
Pop singer Justin Timberlake is joining the cast of the next Shrek movie, teaming up with his actress girlfriend Cameron Diaz.
Timberlake, 24, will voice the new character of Artie, the rebellious nephew of King Harold, producers Dreamworks revealed.
And just because you can get too much of a good thing:
Banderas has signed up for a Shrek spin-off, with Puss as the lead character.
May 03, 2005 @ 13:12:59
Maybe I’m jaded, but who thinks Justin and Cameron will still be together when Shrek 3 hits theaters?!?
May 03, 2005 @ 13:18:36
Does anyone even care?
May 03, 2005 @ 13:23:25
Dreamwork would no doubt love if they broke up a month or two before its release. The publicity is no doubt the main reason they cast him in the first place.
May 03, 2005 @ 13:28:28
I might care…if the movies were any good. What insanity has taken over the collective conciousness to the point that this garbage warrants this many sequels and this kind of attention. Do people not see how horribly dated this stuff will be in just 10 years time? It’s loud, crass and highly marketable. Shrek is a classic, no doubt.
May 03, 2005 @ 13:35:07
Again, a positive reminder on why PIXAR is such a paradigm of artistic greatness.
May 03, 2005 @ 23:27:52
“Dreamwork would no doubt love if they broke up a month or two before its release. The publicity is no doubt the main reason they cast him in the first place.”
I don’t know if you’ve paid much attention to SHREK 2’s box office and DVD performance, but I don’t think DreamWorks needs any extra publicity to sell the movie.
Also, I don’t think a messy Hollywood breakup is really going to do anything to help sell a family movie.
May 04, 2005 @ 09:15:58
“All publicity is good publicity.”
And few franchises are able to maintain THAT kind of success continuously. The early publicity on III certainly ain’t hurting.
May 04, 2005 @ 10:38:41
When a movie features a drug bust in which one of the main “good” characters is caught with drugs, I don’t think the movie can be considered a “family movie”.
Call me over protective, but I don’t allow my toddler to watch Shrek or Shrek 2. These are clearly adult movies. The adult-targeted jokes aren’t innocent and aren’t written in a way that always goes over the kids head. The violence is a bit much for a “family movie”.
It’s a sad fact of life that most of America considers the Shrek movies to be suitable for very young children. I guess that’s the same segment that considers Professional Wrestling to be educational entertainment for young children.
And all that said, it wasn’t even all that funny. The sequel was better than the first one, but that wasn’t that hard. Then again, I don’t find Mike Myers to be funny and find all his movies to be tedious at best.
May 04, 2005 @ 11:05:53
I don’t remember any excess violence. ? As for the adult humor, it did seem to me to be over a tot’s head. The drug bust, for example, only makes sense as a “drug bust” o an adult. To a kid it’s one more obstacle in the hero’s path.
May 04, 2005 @ 13:13:47
1) “All publicity is good publicity.”
While that’s true in some cases, I think it could only hurt a proven commodity like the SHREK franchise. And I don’t think the Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie rumors are going to help MR. AND MRS. SMITH as much as they’ll hurt it.
2) “I don’t think the movie can be considered a family movie.”
I think there’s a distinction between a childrens movie and a family movie. Even something like MEET THE FOCKERS, which was borderline R rated, is a family movie.
You may not classify it as such for your purposes, but SHREK is very much a family movie. SHREK 2 didn’t become the highest grossing comedy of all time strictly with adult business. And the millions of dollars of Shrek merchandise hasn’t been purchased for adults.
If I remember correctly, both movies were rated PG. That means they aren’t suitable for all audiences.
May 04, 2005 @ 14:09:46
I agree there’s a difference between “family movie” and “children’s movie”. The Shrek series is not a children’s movie, if by child we refer to 6-7 and younger. Shrek is a family movie as long as the family doesn’t include younger children. Shrek probably goes over exceedingly well in families with preteens and teenagers.
I disagree that a movie’s gross is indicative of its appropriateness for either a family movie or a children’s movie. The only thing a high gross indicates is that a lot of people went to see the movie. Whether some misguided, ignorant parents take their very young children and not-so-young children to it does not make a movie a children’s or family movie. I’ve been in R-rated movies in which parents brought very young children — which is another pet peeve, but I digress.
McDonald’s Happy Meals are probably the #1 selling children’s food in America. That doesn’t make it healthy for kids. Ditto for top-grossing PG movies.
I feel so oooolllldd now. I guess that’s what happens when you have a child. I remember the time when I would have argued that any child should be able to see virtually any non-R-rated movie and not be affected. I also remember my mother putting me on punishment for watching a Richard Pryor concert on HBO that she had forbid me to watch when I was about 12 or 13. At the time, I didn’t understand why she didn’t want me to watch it. I understand fully now.
May 04, 2005 @ 14:14:44
Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers?????
Uhhh, those are not family movies. Unless your definition of family is a household of five that includes a 19, 23, and a 32-year old man who all still live at home with their parents.
While we’re at it, let’s include as family movies any Farrelly brothers movie and American Pie.
May 04, 2005 @ 14:27:36
EarlLantern:
Can you explicate a bit more as to what makes the Shrek films inappropriate for a five-year old? My niece saw the first at age 4, and I never thought it inappropriate for her age. ?
May 04, 2005 @ 15:18:14
I don’t think the SHREK films are good family entertainment, not because of any specific content, but just because they are plain lousy. Yeah, I know all about box office grosses, but remember that Milli Vanilli’s album was like the #1 selling disc of 1989.
May 04, 2005 @ 19:41:13
“Can you explicate a bit more as to what makes the Shrek films inappropriate for a five-year old?”
WARNING: THIS IS ONLY MY OPINION
I find many things offensive in Shrek in regards to children aged five or four.
Kids that age should not be repeatedly watching programming that features human-to-human violence. Shrek is full of human-to-human (or humanoid-to-humanoid) violence. If a very young child repeatedly watches such images, he/she will act out what they have seen. Remember the boy who practiced an act he saw on professional wrestling and killed a young girl in the process. If, teenagers are copying stunts from MTV’s Jackass, why wouldn’t we expect much younger and less mature humans to copy acts they see?
I don’t think it’s appropriate for very young children to watch programming where the characters main form of communication consists of insulting each other. It’s one thing if we’re talking the sort of talk on the Cosby Show or Disney cartoons. In those cases, it’s either made very clear that the characters care for each other and/or that the characters behaving in such a manner are behaving badly. In Shrek, nearly every character behaves rudely and rarely is such behavior deemed inappropriate.
Again, I come back to the jokes. It’s one thing to say a joke may go over a child’s level of understanding. It’s another to assume the child won’t notice everyone else laughing and ask the parent “what’s so funny?” If the child repeatedly asks that question and the parent can’t answer truthfully, that’s not a movie the child should be watching. A couple of times? Sure. A few times? That’s too many.
I’m not saying the Shrek movies should be banned. I just feel they are inappropriate for very young children. Especially in DVD form where a child can watch it over and over and over and over and over.
Obviously, many parents disagree, or either haven’t even bothered to consider the inappropriateness of the Shrek movies in consideration of their young children. I’ve had to explain my thinking to friends of mine on the topic. One friend even said the same thing as you: “My four year old niece watches it all the time and LOVES it. What do you think is wrong with it?”
Maybe I’m wrong. Either way, that’s why I raise my children and other people raise their kids. That way, I can’t complain how mine turn out.
May 05, 2005 @ 10:08:35
The logic therein lies upon the assumption that children cannot discern the difference between fantasy and reality. When I was around 4/5, I watched The Three Stooges on TV religiously, and never once did I try to saw my brother’s head off or pull him around by the nose with a set of pliers.
Furthermore, using the argument “teenagers are copying stunts from MTV’s Jackass” is tantamount to using the exception to prove the rule. Are you seriously going to argue that what a handful of mugwumps did is indicative of an entire demographic group? Paging Senator Lieberman…
Still, I stand by the assertion that the SHREK films are inappropriate, just because they blow donkey nuts.
May 05, 2005 @ 18:04:21
Matthew, do you let your young children watch Shrek?
May 05, 2005 @ 19:23:13
I don’t have kids of my own Earl — at least none that I know of — but I’ve watched the Shrek films with my nieces. They laugh themselves silly, and the stuff that goes over their heads… *POOF* outta sight, outta mind.
I would say that the films are bad for kids if and only if they immediately start acting up in an inappropriate way after watching it. But that’s up to the individual child and parent.
May 05, 2005 @ 19:39:02
“I would say that the films are bad for kids if and only if they immediately start acting up in an inappropriate way after watching it.”
No offense, but that’s a narrow time frame.
“that’s up to the individual child and parent.”
Now that’s where I agree. Well, about being up to the parent. A 5y.o. has no say so when it comes to deciding what he/she is allowed to see. But, if a parent decides to let his/her young child view Shrek, or Blade, or House of Wax, or American Pie, that is that parent’s choice.
What I consider inappropriate behavior, another parent may consider normal childhood behavior, and yet another parent may consider it sinful.
I have a feeling that once you have children, your views will shift at least a little. Mine did.
May 07, 2005 @ 01:28:25
The Shrek films are lousy because A) the humor is all toilet-humor or so topical that everybody will forget why it’s funny 10 years in the future; B)they use celebrity voices to sell the movies instead of compelling stories and characters; C) the fact that they’re resorting to casting an overrated, hack talent actress’s boyfriend tells you how important it is for DreamWorks to cast GOOD voice actors!
And yeah, within pretty much 10 minutes you forget what a Shrek movie is all about… They’re that memorable!
DreamWorks/PDI — doing the films that are the dregs of stories that Pixar discarded.