After Puss in Boots: The Last Wish teased a return to Far Far Away, everyone had been wondering when we were going to see a return of the Shrek franchise. What’s great is, it looks like a fifth movie is in the works.
Talking to Variety, Illumination’s Chris Meledandri, who is also a creative partner at DreamWorks Animation, has confirmed that Shrek 5 is in the works, and Mike Myers (Shrek), Eddie Murphy (Donkey), and Cameron Diaz (Fiona) are all in negotiations to return. Meledandri says about the project:
“It’s not that dissimilar to the process that we went through with ‘Mario,’ where you look at what the core elements are that audiences have loved, and you do your very best to honor those core elements,… And then you’re hard at work to build story elements and new characters that take you to brand new places. The original cast is a huge part of that.”
The Shrek franchise had launched in 2001 and had ended with Shrek Forever After in 2010. Admittedly, the movies’ high point is considered to be the second film, but I wouldn’t put it past DreamWorks to try and recapture that same kind of magic with a new film.
We don’t know where Shrek could go moving forward, but considering that it was a formative film for a lot of millennials, we could have a more mature story for Shrek 5. Then again, I wouldn’t be surprised if we got a reboot sequel focusing on new younger characters (maybe Shrek’s kids?) with appearances from characters from the original films.
Shrek 5 has not been officially announced.
