DreamWorks’ upcoming slate of films has made one thing clear: it’s weird that Shrek 5 hasn’t happened yet. Shrek has been one of the biggest franchises in the roster of DreamWorks animated movies for years, so with Shrek 5 greenlit, it would make sense for that to be one of the company’s top priorities. However, it’s only been DreamWorks franchises other than Shrek that have continued as of late, which makes the lack of news about Shrek 5 even weirder.
The next several years will see the continuation of a variety of DreamWorks franchises. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is set to premiere on December 21, 2022, and it was recently announced that Kung Fu Panda 4 is officially in development and set to release on March 8, 2024. Trolls 3 is also set to release on November 17, 2023, and The Boss Baby is set to have a third movie, so it’s clear that a lot of DreamWorks’ future films will be continuations of their various franchises.
That idea, of course, makes it all the weirder that a Shrek 5 movie hasn’t happened yet. Shrek 5 has allegedly been in development for years, yet there’s been little to no news about its progress, while other DreamWorks franchises are still getting new installments - including franchises who also had hiatuses, like Kung Fu Panda 4 and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. Even with how long a process animation can be, there should logically have been some update on the movie and its status by now, so it’s odd that there’s been nothing while there’s been so much for other franchises.
Shrek 5 Was Supposed To Happen - Why Hasn’t It?
Shrek 5 was first announced to be in development in 2016, and Eddie Murphy, who voices Donkey in the franchise, said that the script was finished and that the movie would come out in 2019 or 2020 (via Cinemablend). There have been no major updates since then, and DreamWorks' Shrek 5 obviously wasn’t released in 2019 or 2020, so something had to have happened to delay it. Shrek 5 was first announced shortly after NBCUniversal purchased DreamWorks Animation, so it could be that all of the restructurings that would have caused resulted in the movie getting pushed back in development. It could also be that with how big of a franchise Shrek is, they want to make sure that the next movie is up to the standards of its predecessors, which could have also caused production delays.
The reasons behind Shrek 5’s delay are unknown at the moment, but whatever the case, it’s still weird that it hasn’t been released yet. If DreamWorks is still interested in continuing Kung Fu Panda - a franchise that seemed to be done with movies - and Puss in Boots, which is a spinoff of Shrek, then it would make sense for Shrek 5 to be a top priority for them, but there’s no word on when it’s supposed to be coming out. It’s one thing for the movie to be delayed, but the utter silence surrounding Shrek 5 when it was supposed to come out at least two years ago is what makes things truly strange.