It's Based On The Book... "Shrek!" By William Steig Just when you thought that Hollywood has been massively creative all on its own, you find out that even Shrek - an animated movie partially based around characters like "talking donkey" - is spawned from pre-existing material. Yes, Shrek wasn't some obscure spec script that a passionate movie executive fell in love with and fought hard to get made - it's a picture book written and illustrated by William Steig. The book is only 32 pages, mind you, so they did pad this thing out quite a lot... mostly by giving Eddie Murphy a major speaking role. How Close Is It To The Book? The basis of the story is the same - an ogre sets out to save a princess - though that's about it. In the book, Shrek speaks in poetic verse (don't ask) and spends a lot of time frightening the other characters and not really minding that he's doing that. His motives for saving the princess are also more muddled in the book, and he isn't Scottish, either, because that would be insane. The book also has, like, an exclamation mark after its title, because why not have an exclamation mark after your title? You're a novelist! Do as you please! Like this article? What have we missed? Let us know in the comments section below.