DreamWorks Animation announced the film on 9 July 2024, with Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, and Cameron Diaz all set to return.
Initial planning for Shrek 5 dates back to at least the mid-2000s, following the positive reception to Shrek 2 (2004). It was originally going to be released around 2013, but it was eventually abandoned when DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg decided to end the franchise in its fourth film, Shrek Forever After (2010). However, development of Shrek 5 was resuscitated in 2014 until Universal Pictures officially confirmed production of the film when its parent company NBCUniversal bought DreamWorks Animation in 2016, with updates following from March 2017 to July 2024.
This will be the third theatrically released fifth installment to animated film franchise of all time (not counting spin-offs), after Ice Age: Collision Course (2016) and Toy Story 5 (2026).