Now that Universal owns DreamWorks Animation, the Comcast company will bring back Shrek, after the last movie premiered six years ago.
In an investor gathering held today via Deadline, Steve Burke, the CEO of NBCUniversal, said that Illumination Entertainment CEO Chris Meledandri "is creatively going to try to help us figure out how to resurrect Shrek and take a lot of the existing DreamWorks franchises and add value as we create new franchises.”
Meledandri's company is best known for the $2.6 billion Despicable Me franchise. They also created Hop, The Lorax and the upcoming The Secret Life of Pets.
Universal bought DreamWorks Animation for $3.8 billion in cash back in April. The company now owns properties like Shrek, Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon.
DreamWorks currently has Sing slated for November 4, The Boss Baby for March, Captain Underpants for June 2017, The Croods 2 in December 2017, Larrikins in February 2018 and How to Train Your Dragon 3 slated for June 2018. 20th Century Fox will release those films as part of their distribution deal with DreamWorks Animation from 2013. After Dragon 3, Universal takes the reigns.
It's unknown if Shrek will come back in a movie, TV program, or some sort of spin-off.
The last Shrek movie, Shrek Forever After, came out in 2010. Despite being a monstrous hit with over $752.6 million at the worldwide box office, the fourth movie made 26 percent less domestically than Shrek the Third after that movie performed 26.8 percent softer than Shrek 2, according to Box Office Mojo. Shrek Forever After ended up with less money domestically than the original Shrek from 2001 without the need to adjust for inflation. Even with decreasing returns, the four Shrek movies remain the top four highest-grossing movies domestically for DreamWorks Animation.