It’s been nearly 15 years since the release of the last Shrek film, Shrek Forever After, and another is just on the horizon. However, the teaser that Universal Pictures released for Shrek 5 on February 27th was met with considerable controversy.
The Shrek franchise is among the most popular animated film series of all time, with the first two movies in particular receiving the most praise (The first Shrek winning an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, and the second being nominated). But other than the two Puss-in-Boots spin-off films, no more Shrek films have been released in over a decade. Rumors of a fifth Shrek movie had been going around since before the fourth movie was released, but it wasn’t until June 2023 that the film was officially announced. The announcement was met with great anticipation building up to the release of the teaser. Senior Inji Hamdoun, a self-proclaimed Shrek fan, was excited about the new film. “I feel like I’ve been watching those movies my whole life and I can’t wait for a new entry into the canon,” she said.
The teaser features characters Shrek, Donkey, Fiona, and Felicia around a Tiktok-version of the Magic Mirror, in turn horrified (Fiona smitten) by a buff shirtless image of Shrek. A voice then reads off the cast list, featuring recurring vocal performances from Mike Meyers as Shrek, Cameron Diaz as Fiona, and Eddie Murphy as Donkey, along with Zendaya joining the cast as Shrek’s daughter Felicia.
The official teaser trailer on the Universal Pictures YouTube account, as of writing, has 530,000 dislikes, to only 193,000 likes. The trailer has been unfavorably compared to the original Sonic the Hedgehog and A Minecraft Movie teaser trailers, with particular criticism aimed at the new art style and the “modern” humor. Colson Lynch, a Junior said, “The art was a little bit weird.”
Shrek 5 is scheduled to release Christmas 2026, following a delay from July of the same year to avoid competition with Minions 3.