The Shrek Effect: This jolly green giant is putting the squeeze on Disney's Mouse House, raising the bar on animation and threatening to steal the first Oscar in the field.(Arts and Entertainment)

Publication: Newsweek

Publication Date: 18-JUN-01

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For as long as anyone can remember, the word "animation" has been synonymous with the name Walt Disney. They have ruled this roost unchallenged ever since Mickey was a newborn mouse. Of the six highest-grossing animated films of all time, all are Disney. At the top of the heap roars "The Lion King," with $312.9 million in domestic grosses alone. But the movie's box-office revenue is only part of its remarkable success: add in merchandising, video, the stage spinoff and theme-park attractions, and "Lion King" has generated an estimated $1 billion in profits--not revenue, profits--for the Disney empire.

Numbers like that can make the competition drool with envy. Into the breach rushed Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros. and DreamWorks, hoping to loosen Disney's stranglehold on the market. Last year, after the sci-fi fantasy "Titan A.E." crashed and burned at the box office, Fox retreated from the field in defeat, closing down its animation department. Warners, after the disappointment of the acclaimed "Iron Giant," has reduced its production to a trickle. DreamWorks mounted the most furious assault, led by revenge-minded former Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, who had overseen Disney's great run of animated-musical hits but left the studio on bitter terms with former colleague Michael Eisner. But neither "Antz," the self-important "Prince of Egypt" nor the lambasted...

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