A fifth Shrek is still happening — and a Donkey spinoff is coming, too.
After years of rumors and a post-credits scene in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish that clearly tees it up, Eddie Murphy says fans are finally going to get a fifth Shrek movie soon. That also won’t be Murphy’s only return to the world of Shrek, as the actor says Dreamworks is also developing a spinoff starring the character of Donkey — the role Murphy has played for nearly 25 years now. Back in November, Dreamworks was reportedly eyeing a 2025 release date for Shrek 5, althuogh the project has been in and out of development for about a decade, which makes it really hard to track the progress from the outside.
It’s been over a decade since Shrek Forever After — so long that some rumors have 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 hardly makes sense. The huge critical and commercial success of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish also makes it hard to stray too far from the classic Shrek cast and storyline.
“I started recording Shrek, I think it’s coming out in 2025, and we’re doing a Donkey one next,” Murphy — currently promoting his new Netflix film Axel F — told Collider.
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.
