The first Shrek was a game-changer for Dreamworks Animation, and years later, the studio is still hoping to bring the franchise back to life. Since 2017, there have been rumors of a fifth Shrek movie, and earlier this year Eddie Murphy confirmed that he was working not only on Shrek but also on a stand-alone Donkey spinoff. That got fans excited, and we’ve had some small updates since, but all we really knew was that Murphy, Mike Myers, and Cameron Diaz would return to reprise their roles. Now, recurring villain John Lithgow says he’s open to a return…but that he has not yet been asked to do so.
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It’s easy to wonder if that means we’re done seeing Lord Farquaad altogether…or if they just haven’t asked Lithgow yet. After all, unless he is a main character, one could imagine that Lithgow would not be in the voice booth for as long as the series leads. Farquaad had relatively little screen time compared to Shrek and Donkey in pretty much every film.
That said — the clock is presumably ticking.
“I started recording Shrek, I think it’s coming out in 2025, and we’re doing a Donkey one next,” Murphy told Collider over the summer.
It’s been over a decade since Shrek Forever After — so long that some rumors had suggested the franchise is as likely to be full-on rebooted as continued. But with fans’ love for Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy int he roles, a reboot feels like it would be a hard sell. There could, at least in theory, be a middle ground where they reboot but keep the voice cast (think of how often that’s happened to Scooby-Doo!), but honestly, the critical and commercial success of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish likely makes it hard to stray too far from the classic Shrek cast and storyline.
Based on William Steig’s picture book Shrek!, the franchise launched in 2001 and consists of four Shrek feature films, a pair of Puss in Boots spinoffs, and numerous short movies and holiday specials made for TV and home video.
The Shrek franchise has brought in over $1 billion at the box office, in addition to hundreds of millions in ancillary revenue and merchandising. With the return of Kung Fu Panda to theaters earlier this year, it became clear that Dreamworks was serious about reviving some of their properties, making it even more likely that new Shrek was finally on the way.
The Donkey movie is something Murphy has mentioned in the past, but rumors about it are far less well-established than the Shrek 5 stories. If it happens, he will be the second character (after Antonio Banderas’s Puss in Boots) to get a spinoff movie. Banderas’ version of Puss in Boots made his onscreen debut in 2004’s Shrek 2. Puss in Boots was such a breakout hit as a character that DreamWorks brought him back for two more Shrek movies after that, before giving him his first spinoff film and a follow-up animated series.
