If you thought the Shrek films were ogre, you were wrong. Following earlier reports that a Shrek 5 was in the works, Universal has announced that they are instead going to be giving the jolly green giant a reboot–though the details of what it will be currently remain unclear.

For one thing, it will be Illumination’s Chris Meledandri who will oversee the film. “The challenge for us has been to find something that really does feel like it’s not simply yet another film in a series of sequels,” Melendandri told Variety, which broke the story. Despite the “reboot” status of the project, Melendanri expressed his desire to have Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy and the rest of the original voice cast return. A Puss in Boots revival is also in early development.

DreamWorks Animation, of course, was responsible for the first five Shrek films (counting the original Puss spin-off), which grossed a collected $3.5 billion worldwide, making it the second biggest animated film series of all times behind only Illumination’s own Despicable Me movies. The studio was also purchased by Comcast in 2016, momentarily leaving the future of some of their most popular franchises in question, but since then Universal has approved several sequels to the company’s prior properties, including Trolls and The Boss Baby. No release date is currently available for the Shrek revival.


Shrek 2 (2004)