Many people instantaneously went from loving Shrek to hating Shrek when Shrek the Third was released in 2007. And since we’ve already said “Shrek” more than anyone in the history of mankind has ever said in such a short amount of words, why stop now! Although said third film was pretty unanimously disliked compared to the original and wonderful first two Shrek films, DreamWorks has moved forward with the planned fourth film in the mega franchise — a movie that we now know will officially be called Shrek Forever After. The studio has given USA Today released a couple of new images from the film, as well as many new details as to what we can expect. Click the image to go large and click the link to go see another image.
One smart move that’s being made is that DreamWorks hasn’t been talking a lot about this project and releasing a ton of images. Instead of risking fans becoming turned off by two straight years of news and images and rumors, it appears that they’re trying to ease us into the return of the giant green ogre. They’re doing this by dropping this first batch of images and updates right before the first trailer is debuted in only a few weeks when Avatar is released. The movie itself will be released on May 21, 2010.
As for details, we’ve learned that this will in fact be the last movie in the series, and that it will (naturally) be in 3-D. The story will follow Shrek as he’s beginning to feel like a tamed animal: happily married with children and the whole nine. “It used to send villagers running away in terror. Now they run to him and ask him to sign their pitchforks and torches,” explains director Mike Mitchell (Sky High, Deuce Bigelow: Male Gigolo). In order to get his animalistic groove back, he enters into a deal with the sneaky little Rumpelstiltskin (Walt Dohrn), which of course doesn’t work out quite as planned and leads to Shrek having to observe what things would look like if he had never been born ala It’s A Wonderful Life. This parallel universe of sorts sees Donkey as a cart-puller, Rumplestiltskin as King, and Puss in Boots as a fat house pet.
Shrek Forever After stars all of the usual suspects: Mike Myers as Shrek, Cameron Diaz as Fiona, Eddie Murphy as Donkey, and Antonio Banderas as Puss in Boots. Newcomers to the cast include Kristin Schaal (Flight of the Conchords) and Kathy Griffin as ogre-hunting witches, and female favorite Jon Hamm (Mad Men) as the “best-looking ogre you’ve ever seen.”
The movie will join Iron Man 2, Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and Sex in the City 2 in likely forming one insane box office month.
