Movies: Shrek | Shrek 2 | Shrek the Third | Shrek Forever After | Puss in Boots | Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
Other media: Shrek 4D | Shrek the Halls | Scared Shrekless | The Adventures of Puss in Boots | Shrek: The Musical
- Acting for Two:
- In the Swedish dub, Anders Öjebo voices Jack Horner while also reprising his role as Gingy.
- In the Norwegian dub, Even Bergan voices both Jack Horner and the Ethical Bug.
- Celebrity Voice Actor:
- In the European French dub, the Wolf is voiced by rapper Doudou Masta.
- In the German dub, Perrito is played by influencer and content creator Riccardo Simmoneti while presenter Oliver Kalkofe plays Jack Horner and the Ethical Bug.
- In the Latin American Spanish dub, TV actress Julieta Nair Calvo voices Goldilocks, actress Patricia Echegoyen voices Mama Bear, film producer Axel Kuschevatzky voices Papa Bear and actor Omar Perez Reyes (stage name Faisy) voices Jack Horner.
- Wagner Moura as the Wolf in the original English version, but not in the Brazilian dub. However, there's actress Giovanna Ewbank as Goldilocks and actor Sergio Malheiros as Baby Bear in the Brazilian dub.
- In the Japanese dub, the titular hero is voiced by movie actor Kouji Yamamoto, replacing Naoto Takenaka from previous films. Likewise, Kitty is voiced by singer Anna Tsuchiya,note also replacing Takako Honda, while Goldilocks is voiced by Idol Singer Shoko Nakagawa and Big Jack by Korean-Japanese actor Kim Song-ha (aka Songha)
- Channel Hop: Paramount Pictures distributed the first movie, while Universal Pictures, who acquired DreamWorks Animation back in 2016, distributed the sequel.
- Character Outlives Actor: Jesús Barrero, the Latin American Spanish voice for Gingy, was replaced with his nephew José Gilberto Vilchis after the former's death from lung cancer.
- Creator's Favorite Episode: Producer Mark Swift has said this is his favorite film he ever worked on out of the five films he's helped produce at Dreamworks.
- Descended Creator: Kevin McCann, a storyboard artist at DreamWorks Animation, voices the Ethical Bug.
- Dueling Dubs: Within a month of its release, the film had been dubbed into Persian nine times.
- Dueling Movies: With Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, both being animated family films released around the same time that are based on fairy tales and deal with themes of death and mortality. Pinocchio has a cameo in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, and a Jiminy Cricket-type character accompanies Jack Horner. Incidentally, both were also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Picture.
- DVD Commentary: With director Joel Crawford, co-director Januel Mercado, producer Mark Swift, editor James Ryan and head of story Heidi Jo Gilbert.
- Early-Bird Release: The film was given a nationwide, one-time-only sneak preview on November 26, 2022.
- Fake Nationality: The Brazillian Wagner Moura gives the Wolf a Spanish accent, and occasionally sprinkles a few Spanish phrases while portraying him.
- Inspiration for the Work:
- Director Joel Crawford said that the tone of the film was inspired by two main sources: classical fairy tales, especially from The Brothers Grimm, and Spaghetti Western, particularly The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and the way it develops a hunt between three different parties in search for a treasure — the film is even directly referenced in one of the tracks, called "The Good, Bad, and Goldi".
- Goldilocks and the Crime Bear Family were inspired
by the films of Guy Ritchie.
- Late Export for You: The film got delayed in the United Kingdom and Ireland to February 3, 2023, making it one of the few modern American films to be delayed from a U.K. release.
- Missing Trailer Scene:
- The trailer scene of Puss' seventh death (being flattened by a sumo) was replaced by a scene of Puss being fried when over-heating an oven while baking with Gingy in the film itself (the sumo scene was likely to hide Gingy's cameo). Also, death 2 (allergic reaction from shellfish) and death 6 (being mauled by dogs after cheating at a card game) were switched.
- Speaking of deaths, the design of the "death card" showing the number of Puss' death in the trailer is different from the actual movie. Makes sense, since the final design teases Death.
- The trailer depicts a scene of Kitty reassuring Puss that "when you have one life, that's what makes it special" in the Dark Forest. No such scene happens in the movie; Kitty doesn't learn Puss is on his last life until the climax.
- The scene of Perrito attempting to imitate Puss and Kitty's "trust me" faces takes place in an entirely different location in the actual film than in the trailer, and Puss isn't shown reacting to it. The scene of Puss making said face is also animated differently for the trailer in order to mask the fact that, in the film, he still has a beard during the scene.
- Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor: Antonio Banderas reprises his role as Puss in the Latin American and European Spanish dubs of the film while Harvey Guillén reprises his role as Perrito in the former.
- The Original Darrin: In Red Head Sound's unlicensed Russian dub, Gingy is once again voiced by Dmitriy Filimonov, who previously voiced the character in the first three Shrek films.
- The Other Darrin:
- In the Italian dub, Puss is voiced by Diego Suarez instead of having Antonio Banderas voicing him in Italian as it happened since Shrek the Third.
- In the Latin American Spanish dub, and unlike Banderas, Salma Hayek doesn't reprise her role as Kitty in either the Latin Spanish and European Spanish dubs. In the Latin American case, she is replaced with Veronica Lopez Treviño, while in Spain, oddly enough, she is replaced by a professional Mexican voice actress, Diana Alonso, rather than being voiced by a Spaniard voice actress, possibly to avoid having to fake a Mexican accent with her.
- In the Japanese dub, Naoto Takenaka and Takako Honda, as Puss and Kitty respectively, were replaced with Kouji Yamamoto and Anna Tsuchiya respectively.
- The official Russian dub re-cast all returning characters, as it was dubbed in Georgia instead of Russia itself due to the latter's invasion of Ukraine. Andrej Bibikaŭ replaced Vsevolod Kuznetsov as the titular character, while Kitty Softpaws, previously voiced by Tatiana Shitova, is now voiced by Diana Nersesova.
- In The Trident short, Puss is voiced by Eric Bauza (also a Role Reprise from The Adventures of Puss in Boots) while Kitty is voiced by Margo Rey.
- In a spiritual sense, Florence Pugh replaces Tara Strong as Goldilocks, who had voiced her in Shrek Smash N'Crash Racing.
- Playing Against Type: Jack Horner marks John Mulaney's first villainous role; all of the characters he had played prior to this film were heroic.
- Production Posse:
- The Croods: A New Age director Joel Crawford, producer Mark Swift, editor James Ryan, story artists Januel Mercado and Heidi Jo Gilbert and writer Paul Fisher reunite for this film.
- Florence Pugh and Ray Winstone previously starred in Black Widow together a year before this movie came out.
- Promoted Fangirl: Florence Pugh grew up watching both The Mask of Zorro and the Shrek movies with her brother, and so was raring to join this film to work with Antonio Banderas.
- Real-Life Relative:
- Three examples in the Swedish dub.
- Lina Hedlund voices Kitty while her partner Nassim Al Fakir voices Perrito.
- Annica Smedius voices Mama Bear while her children Matilda and Emil voices Goldilocks and Baby Bear respectively.
- The serpent sisters are voiced by sisters Bianca and Tiffany Kronlöf.
- The Italian dub has Diego Suarez voicing Puss, while his son Riccardo voices Perrito. His wife, Ilaria Latini, voices Mama Luna.
- Three examples in the Swedish dub.
- Reality Subtext: Antonio Banderas suffered a heart attack in 2017 but was able to survive it. This near-death experience is the foundation of his performance as Puss in Boots, as the character also comes to terms with his own mortality and learns to appreciate what he has in life.
- Refitted for Sequel: The first film was originally going to have Puss fight against a regular giant rather than the Giant Goose in the final version. The Last Wish reuses this for the fight against the Giant of Del Mar, complete with similar actions such as Puss stabbing the Giant in the finger, Puss blinding the Giant with their own eye patch, and the Giant using a hard object as a weapon (the base of a statue for the deleted one, a bell for the Giant of Del Mar) before getting knocked out by it.
- Release Date Change: Alongside the numerous pushbacks during the film’s time in Development Hell, it was pushed back again following the release of the first trailer, from September 23, 2022, to December 21 of the same year.
- Role Reprise:
- Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek reprise their roles as Puss in Boots and Kitty Softpaws after 11 years away.
- Conrad Vernon and Cody Cameron also make cameos as Gingy and Pinocchio, cinematically voicing them for the first time in 12 years.note
- Bob Persichetti reprises his role as the Ohhhh cat from the first film as well.
- Same Language Dub: Three Russian dubs of the film were made: one was made by Bravo Records in Georgia for release in post-Soviet states (except Russia and Belarus), while two unofficial dubs were made by Hot Voice 41 and Red Head Sound for release in Russia and Belarus.
- Same Voice Their Entire Life: John Mulaney also voices "Little" Jack Horner in the brief flashback to his childhood, sounding only slightly higher pitched than he does as "Big" Jack in the present.
- Saved from Development Hell: After the first movie came out in 2011, work on the sequel began in 2014, 8 years before the film's release date.
- Sequel Gap:
- With the first Puss in Boots film being released in 2011 and this one coming out in 2022, we can see 11 years between the installments. This breaks the 7-year record held by The Croods and The Croods: A New Age (also directed by Joel Crawford) as the longest sequel gap for a DreamWorks franchise.
- Chronologically, the film takes place after Shrek Forever After (2010), and for all intents and purposes, it's the first feature film to do so, which means a 12-year gap between Forever After and this movie.
- Short Run in Peru: The film was released in most of the world, including Europe and Asia, during early-December 2022.
- Sleeper Hit: Box office analysts didn't have very high expectations for the film, given it came over a decade after Puss in Boots (2011), and with the exception of Minions: The Rise of Gru, 2022 had seen a string of underperforming animated family films like Strange World and Lightyear. The Last Wish grossed $12.4 million in its opening weekend in the shadow of Avatar: The Way of Water (an opening Variety called "unremarkable"), but thanks to strong reviews and word of mouth it held strongly through the holidays and January, earning more in its fourth weekend than its first, and eventually topped the first film's lifetime domestic gross despite opening significantly lower. By March 2023, the film had grossed over $480 million worldwide on a $90 million budget.
- Throw It In!: Papa Bear's line "I guess some people just stick around until the porridge is gone" was an ad-lib from Ray Winstone when he was being pitched the character and director Joel Crawford accidentally told him what Goldi's wish (which he meant to keep hidden from him) was.
- What Could Have Been:
- At one point, Bob Persichetti (story head on the first movie and director of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) would have directed the film. For unknown reasons, he would be replaced by The Croods: A New Age director Joel Crawford. Persichetti does reprise his role as the Ohhhh cat in the final film and is listed under the Special Thanks in the credits.
- Early in development, the film would have been titled Puss in Boots: 9 Lives and 40 Thieves, most likely with intent to incorporate elements from the Arabian Nights stories. The only remnant of this in the film is the Flying Carpet's prominent cameo, and Puss and Kitty using it to escape.
- At one point during the concept art phase Goldilocks was meant to have come from the Dark Forest and have been affected in some way by the star's magic.
- One of the Wolf's concept art pieces depicts him as emaciated, with red-rimmed yellow eyes, a human skull on his head, and a tail that split into nine tips, making him resemble an Asian Fox Spirit.
- "Big" Jack Horner was going to be called "Robbin' Big" Jack Horner and was to be a more straight-faced mob boss type character whose sadistic humor would be even darker than in the finished film. John Mulaney read for this character when he auditioned, and once cast in the role he gave the filmmakers the perspective of Jack as a more childishly insecure character "on an eternal quest to fill an internal void but nothing will ever be enough", while also using this characterization as an outlet for more over-the-top Black Comedy.
- Puss was supposed to fight against two giants in Del Mar, but the creative team felt like one was sufficient. The Sleeping Giant was also supposed to be more magical in nature, but this was ditched for an earthly, mountainous appearance in order to avoid any confusion with the magic of the Wishing Star.
- There was a moment in the Dark Forest in which Puss, Kitty and Perrito would hunker down for the night in a safe hollow log, where they would strenghten their bond and breathe before the next action scene. In the final film, their bonding instead happens while they navigate through the River of Relaxation, and the travel to the Wishing Star is shorter, as they do not stop to camp. Another cut location was a bramble forest of giant and rambling thorns, roots and vines, which would help to keep the characters from venturing out deeper into the forest.
