Along with “Ice Age: Collision Course” (2016) and “Toy Story 5” (2026), “Shrek 5” will be one of the only fifth installments to an animated film franchise, excluding spin-offs.
Actors returning for this film include Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz. Zendaya will also be joining the cast as Felicia, one of Shrek and Fiona’s triplets. The film’s directors are Walt Dohrn, Conrad Vernon and Brad Ableson.
The majority of backlash this trailer has received is about the animation style, which has been compared to that of Illumination Entertainment. Fans have said that the Shrek and Donkey designs were inaccurate, which may be attributed to the passage of time; in addition, many have been hating on the reference to TikTok memes, stating that it was too meta — despite the fact that the “Shrek” franchise has always made pop culture references.
Characters and stories change, as do the mediums they exist within. The original “Shrek” film from 2001 was made during the early days of 3D feature film animation; because of this, DreamWorks was limited to creating relatively simple models, backgrounds and techniques. However, the animation improved with each new addition to the franchise, but the general foundations remained regarding how certain characters and locations were constructed.
Shrek himself has become a mainstay in popular culture, which is likely part of the reason it is difficult to imagine him looking any different from the earlier films. His status as a ‘master of memes’ means he appears on our personal devices on more of a daily basis.
Although the trailer displays only 27 seconds of footage from the film, some fans have compared “Shrek 5” to Kratos in the 2022 reboot of “God of War.” This is due to Shrek spending much of his adult life hiding from the world that treated him like a monster, perhaps not wanting his daughter to grow up in that society.
According to lore revealed in the previous “Shrek” films, ogres are cannibals. Some have connected this to viewers only seeing one of the three triplets in the teaser. Some theories speculate about the fate of Felicia’s brothers, Fergus and Farkle; the voice actors for the other two triplets have also not been revealed.
Initial planning for “Shrek 5” dates back to at least 2004, following the positive reaction to “Shrek 2.” It was originally intended to release around 2023, but was abandoned when DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg ended the franchise with its fourth film, “Shrek Forever After” (2010). However, development of “Shrek 5” was revived in 2014; in 2016, Universal Pictures officially confirmed production of the film when its parent company NBCUniversal Media bought DreamWorks Animation.
The official “Shrek” Instagram account recently shared a screenshot of Zendaya’s 2017 post on X (formerly known as Twitter), in which she stated, “I watch Shrek too often in my adulthood,” and left a comment on it that said, “This aged well.”
The new film was implicitly teased at the end of “Puss In Boots: The Last Wish” (2022), a film that altered the animation style of this cinematic universe. The way it was teased was the characters returning to the land of Far Far Away. It was officially announced by DreamWorks in July 2024. A Donkey spin-off project is also said to be in the works.
Abby Dreistadt, Editor in Chief