Disney and Pixar's decision to delay the debut of Cars until June 2006 (see 'Cars Slides to Summer') has had an immediate effect in Hollywood, where Dreamworks today announced it was moving the opening of Shrek 3 from the fall of 2006 until May 2007, at which time the not-so-jolly green ogre will likely do box office battle with Spider-Man 3.  Shrek 2, which opened in May of this year, is 2004's box office champion with a worldwide theatrical gross that's expected to soar near one billion dollars, while the Shrek DVD, which debuted in Q4 in plenty of time for holiday sales, will sell over 37 million units and net the studio another half a billion dollars.

Pixar's The Incredibles, which garnered more favorable critical notices and is likely to be nominated for more animation awards than Shrek 2, opened November 5th and, while it has done well ($227 million to date), it will finish far behind Shrek 2 in total box office take.  The enormous success of both Shrek films, which were released in May, has proven that spring/summer is the optimum time to release animated blockbusters in order to maximize box office revenues, and a summer opening offers the additional bonus of allowing the studios to release the DVD in time to capture holiday sales.