Shrek 5 movie is happening with Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz and Eddie Murphy confirmed to return

Shrek is one of those movies that span generations, but if you’re in your late 20s or early 30s, the sight of the green ogre with the Scottish brogue is really going to tug at something deep inside.

Admit it, Smash Mouth songs are imprinted on your cultural consciousness. You know what they mean to you.

Good news. A fifth Shrek movie is in the works, with confirmation that Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz and Eddie Murphy will all be returning to their voice roles as Shrek, Princess Fiona and Donkey.

The studio behind the movies, Dreamworks, made the announcement this morning and also revealed Shrek 5 will be released on July 1, 2026. The social media post was even accompanied by Smash Mouth’s All Star.

The movie will be directed by Walt Dohrn, who has helmed three Trolls movies but is a veteran of the Shrek franchise, having previously served as a writer and artist on the second and third movies and was the head of story on the fourth.

There have been six movies in the series so far, four main Shrek titles and two Puss in Boots spin-offs.

The films have been enormously successful both commercially and critically. The first Shrek film competed in the official competition at the Cannes Film Festival, making it the first animated feature in five decades to be in contention for a prestigious Palme d’Or honour.

The first movie was a clever inversion of traditional fairytale tropes and told the story of a loner ogre whose isolated swamp was inundated with refugees when the nasty Lord Farquaad exiled a bunch of fairytale and nursery rhyme characters.

He is then reluctantly led on a quest to restore the order of the kingdom, just so he can reclaim his solitude, but, along the way, finds he might be happier connected to others.

The 2001 original grossed $US488 million worldwide and became the first winner of the Oscars’ newly introduced animated feature category, besting Monsters Inc and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.

A sequel followed in 2004, which made $US928 million while the third film in 2007 raked in $US813 million. The fourth film, Shrek Forever After, was released in 2010.

At the time of Shrek Ever After’s release, Myers had reflected on his character’s journey across the four movies and why the ending brings closure to that adventure.

He told Peter Travers’ Popcorn series, “This is about an ogre that doesn’t love himself and that’s his hole in his heart. He doesn’t love himself enough that he thinks he can be in love. In the second one, he doesn’t feel that he can be married and in the third one, he doesn’t feel he can be a father.

“Then this fourth and final one, he doesn’t feel that ogres deserve a happily ever after and so by going to the idiom, going to the artform of fairytale by wrapping it up with happily ever after is a mythmaker’s masterstroke. I thought it was a great idea.”

Murphy, who is on a nostalgia tour recently with the release of Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, flagged that a fifth Shrek movie was coming. He told Collider last month he had started voice recording for his role and also said that there was a Donkey spin-off in the pipeline.

Shrek 5 continues the comeback of Diaz, who stopped acting after the 2014 release of Annie but recently came out of retirement for a Seth Gordon-directed comedy called Back in Action, alongside Jamie Foxx and Glenn Close. That film is due for release in November on streaming.

Myers wasn’t the first actor to portray Shrek. The production had hired Chris Farley, who had recorded almost all of his dialogue when the actor unexpectedly died in 1997. The producers re-cast the role with Myers.