With news of Shrek 5 finally on the way, long-held hopes of a live-action Shrek are now resurfacing once again.
Shrek is one of those rarest franchises where the sequel was arguably better than the first movie—and that’s saying something. It didn’t quite hold the same quality standard as it headed into the third and even fourth films, but that doesn’t mean that fans fell out of love with the green ogre and his entourage.
With the surge of live-action versions of animated films, there’s no better time to bring Shrek into live action—so is it finally on the way?
Fans are manifesting a live-action Shrek
In a word, no. At least not officially.
However, fans are attempting to manifest it and they’re aiming big. The Shrek Wiki has a page dedicated to a supposed live-action movie in the works, although there’s no evidence that any of the information is correct. Whoever wrote it has ‘cast’ an all-star line-up to take on the iconic roles, featuring Will Ferrell as Shrek, Patrick Stewart as Magic Mirror, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth as Pinocchio, and Johnny Depp as Big Bad Wolf.
Some of the voice actors also listed include Chris Pratt as Donkey, Kate Micucci as the Dragon, and Kevin Hart as the Gingerbread Man. Once again, these casts are seemingly fan-made and far from official.
Speaking of fan-made, some fans have even gone so far as to mock up what a live-action Shrek could look like using AI. If it did end up looking anything like that, we’d likely say that keeping it animated is a safer bet, for the good of our eyes.
Never say never, of course. Dreamworks is currently working on a live-action How To Train Your Dragon. If you can do live-action dragons and Vikings, perhaps you can also do convincing versions of ogres and fantasy characters. Thinking about the cast of popular characters, though, it would require either a lot of prosthetic, a lot of visual effects, or a lot of both, to render them realistically.
Still, not every movie needs a live-action and it also seems unlikely that the studio would be working on an animated Shrek 5 at the same time as a live-action film. Much more is possible with animation than live-action—and it’s often cheaper than extensive VFX as well. At a time when studios are trying to cut costs wherever possible, we’d say keep your hopes measured for now.
(featured image: Dreamworks)
