We have moved even further from Shrek 5's divine light

If you felt a cold chill of foreboding crawl across your shoulders earlier today, it was almost certainly because… Well, okay, we can actually think of a lot of reasons you might be experiencing the grim chill of a doomed universe in this moment. But the most recent, and the most Shrek-based, is this: For the first time in your life, you are now further away from the existence of a fifth Shrek movie than you were the day before.

This is per the doomspeakers over at Deadline, who revealed that Universal has forestalled the birth of the long-gestating Shrek 5, delaying it from a July 2026 release to Christmas of that same year. That’s five additional months in which we, as a species, will have to cope with there only being four Shrek movies. (And also two Puss In Boots movies. And the Puss In Boots Netflix show. And the dubiously canon Shrek’s Yule Log, plus a number of other specials mostly available on DVD. The point is: Not enough.)

This is, of course, the Minions‘ fault. And while we know we say that in basically every third Newswire, for once we can actually back it up with facts: Universal has simultaneously moved up Minions 3 into the now vacated July 4, 2026 weekend, for no other reason than the crassly financial truth that the Despicable Me movies have made a ridiculous amount of money with summer releases over the last several years. (2024’s Despicable Me 4 nearly became the franchise’s third installment to crack a billion at the global box office last year, only missing the mark by $31 million.) The masses will presumably choke down another serving of CGI Twinkies, blinding themselves to the truth that a delicious ogre parfait is now so much further away.

For those keeping track, it has now been 15 years since the release of the last “main” Shrek movie, 2010’s Shrek: Forever After. Shrek 5 has been an inordinately long time in coming: Plans for the film started around the release of Shrek 2 in 2004, before it was decided to make a finale out of the franchise’s fourth film. Dreamworks revisited the idea in the 2010s, but even then, it’s been like ten years of very slow development to get Far Far Away up and running again. Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, and Cameron Diaz are all expected to reprise their roles for the film.