Shrek 5 announced for release in 2026

It’s not ogre yet for DreamWorks’s most iconic film franchise, as Shrek 5 has been scheduled for release in two years.

The new movie was announced Tuesday and is scheduled to hit theaters on July 1, 2026. It will mark the first Shrek movie since Shrek Forever After, the fourth film in the franchise, released in 2010.

Details about the new film are sparse, though Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, and Cameron Diaz are all set to return, likely to reprise their roles as Shrek, Donkey, and Princess Fiona, respectively. Walt Dohrn, who worked as a writer for the second and third Shrek installments, is set to direct the movie.

The unveiling of Shrek 5 comes after a reported screenshot of an NBCUniversal employee’s LinkedIn resume was shared online, which listed multiple projects she worked on during her time at the company. Among the listed projects was Shrek 5, which showed it was scheduled for a 2025 release.

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While it will be the first Shrek film in 16 years to hit the big screen, it will come about four years after the release of the most recent film in the Shrek franchise, 2022’s Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. The film, focusing on the Spaniard cat introduced in Shrek 2, received positive reviews and grossed a global total of $481 million.

Shrek is not the only major animated franchise to return to the big screen in summer 2026, as Toy Story 5 is also releasing less than two weeks earlier on June 19, 2026. Tim Allen, the voice of Buzz Lightyear, shared his enthusiasm for the project shortly after it was announced in 2023.