Two More 'Shrek' Movies In The Works

The fourth Shrek instalment is in train, scheduled for release in 2010. The fifth, [Shrek producer Jeffrey Katzenberg] says, will be the last. "It's a finite story, has been from the beginning and I think that's part of its integrity, part of its strength, that we're not thinking this up as we go," he says. "Ultimately we will come back to understand how Shrek arrived in that swamp. We will reveal his story."

While the animation in the new Shrek is extraordinary, and the film has retained much of its charm and humour, some reviewers have noted the sparkle is gone. The Hollywood Reporter thought "much of the bite and a good deal of the wit of the first two films are missing here . . . DreamWorks Animation has clearly gone to the well one time too many in Shrek the Third."

Worse, it went on, the green ogre's "manners and disposition have improved to the point (where) he is threatened by middle-class respectability".