‘Shrek 5’: Is the movie still in the works? Why it is possible that Dreamworks already canceled the film

People have been waiting for “Shrek 5” for a long time, and it is disappointing that there is no update about it. It was in 2016 when NBCUniversal and Dreamworks confirmed that this animation would be in production to complete the five-movie franchise.

“Shrek 5” was supposed to be one of the animated movies that the newly-merged production companies are producing but then there was no movement after the studios hired Michael McCullers to write a fresh story for the fifth film.

Is it canceled?

For years, news reports always deny that “Shrek 5” has been canceled and pointed out some reasons why. One of the things that they say is that - the script has already been prepared so they could not have just pulled out the movie. Plus, there is no cancellation notice coming from the studios so it is hard to say if the movie has been shelved.

Very recently, a note about “Shrek 5's” release date has been posted and it claimed that the film’s premiere date had been moved to 2021 due to the COVID-19 crisis. But this was soon declared to be fake info because it did not come from Dreamworks.

One thing that points to the possibility that it was canceled was Dreamwork’s boss Jeffrey Katzenberg’s previous statement. He said that from the beginning, they are only planning to do five “Shrek” films and although only four have been completed so far, they could have already ended it in the fourth movie instead.

"Before the first one was finished we talked about what the whole story of Shrek is, and each of the chapters answers questions about the first movie and gives us an insight," IGN quoted Katzenberg as saying. "Shrek 3 and 4 are going to reveal other unanswered questions and, finally, in the last chapter, we will understand how Shrek came to be in that swamp when we meet him in the first movie. There is a reason he came to be there, but there is another chapter to the story before that."

Why did they scrap the fifth movie?

Screen Rant reported that it was canceled to give way to other more promising films like the sequel to “Puss and Boots.” the publication also pointed out that while an IMDb page was already created for “Shrek 5” there is no information to share up to now and to think that the page is existing for years now.