Shrek 5 has entered production, with star Mike Myers reaffirming his love for ogre shenanigans, even if he thought Shrek was a crap title at first

It was almost ogre before it even started.

Shrek 5 is happening and currently set for release on July 1, 2026. Also: Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, and Cameron Diaz are all coming back once again to voice Shrek, Donkey, and Fiona respectively. Now, Myers' confirmed voiceover work has already started, and he's been busy letting everyone know that the initial Shrek pitch was an absolute disaster.

The bits come from Vulture's interview with the veteran actor, comedian, and filmmaker, who was happy to talk Shrek and his relationship with the character and movie series over the years.

It turns out that Shrek (the main character, not the movie) could've gone in a very different direction due to DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg's initial pitch, which happened at the worst possible time. "I went to the premiere of Saving Private Ryan, and Jeffrey Katzenberg comes up to me afterward in the lobby and brings his daughters, who then do the dance sequence from Austin Powers... This was after such a heavy movie, and I was in tears because my parents were in World War II. I was shell-shocked and then they’re doing the dance."

Adding insult to injury, the movie's title was terrible, or at least that's what the actor thought at the time: "Well, that’s the worst f**king title I’ve ever heard in my life," he plainly said. The situation was turned around once he sat down to take a look at the in-progress movies though. Like most audiences once it came out, he was enchanted by the fresh, modernized take of classic fairy tales: "So I saw it and I liked that it turned fairy tales on its head. I thought that was really, really smart. The fairy tale is a Eurocentric form, dealing with class, right? To say, 'Yes, we know it’s Eurocentric but it can be more inventive and inclusive.' And to have an African American voice in Donkey in it, I thought it was brilliant."

On the matter of actually getting Shrek right during production of that first movie, it's known that Myers switched from a Canadian accent to a Scottish one halfway through, with both Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg arguing it would be really expensive to reanimate scenes. They ended up biting the bullet though, and later recognized the movie was better after the change. Spielberg said: "You were absolutely right. You were 100 percent more connected to it." Anyone who's watched the movies will agree that Myers' performance and accent are one of the keys to how well they work.

He's not wrong about that first movie as a whole either. More than 20 years later, and no matter what you think about the series past Shrek 2, that original story works wonderfully and resonates with both kids and adults in a way that very few animated movies do. It's also the sort of family-friendly flick that doesn't feed its audience dumbed-down character arcs and themes. Paychecks aside, Myers seems to be genuinely happy to return to that world once more and has also confirmed he's currently voicing some lines, but has yet to reunite with co-stars Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz.