Sixteen years. That is how long it has been since Shrek Forever After and the last time anyone new was dragged into the Far Far Away universe for a sequel.
On Tuesday, DreamWorks released the first real teaser for Shrek 5, all 27 seconds of it, and in those 27 seconds confirmed a release date of June 30, 2027, revealed the film's basic premise, showed Zendaya as Shrek and Fiona's daughter Felicia doing the animated equivalent of teen-girl irritation at her embarrassing ogre father, and ended with the entire family plus Donkey behind bars while Donkey belted out "Roxanne" from a jail cell.
That is the movie. That is what is coming.
The trailer opens with a storybook narrator setting the scene:
"Once upon a time, a hideous ogre and a delusional donkey embarked on a journey to the magical city of Further Further Away."
Donkey is thrilled about the big-city adventure. Shrek is annoyed about the big-city adventure.
Shrek and Donkey being on completely opposite ends of an emotional spectrum about any given situation is the structural foundation on which a $4 billion franchise has been built.
The city they are headed to is Further Further Away, one step beyond Far Far Away, the fairy-tale kingdom of the previous four films, now apparently replaced or expanded with an urban equivalent.
What happens when they get there is mostly being saved for later trailers. What the teaser reveals is that the journey concludes, at least temporarily, with everyone in jail. Donkey's choice of morale-boosting music is "Roxanne."
Gingerbread Man, who gets a brief moment in the teaser, apparently applies gumdrop candies to himself and becomes "caked up like a friggin' bakery."
The New Family That Is Going On This Adventure
Shrek 5 has been building its cast publicly since February 2025, when a proof-of-concept teaser revealed that Zendaya had been cast as Felicia, Shrek and Fiona's daughter.
The Shrek and Fiona of this film have aged past the triplets-born-in-Shrek-the-Third era into something that looks more like early family road trip chaos.
Felicia, voiced by Zendaya, appears as a teenager reacting to her parents with the specific mixture of love and mortification that teenage children of embarrassing parents across all species understand.
Her two brothers are Fergus, voiced by Marcello Hernández from Saturday Night Live, and Farkle, voiced by Skyler Gisondo from Superman.
Mike Myers is back as Shrek. Eddie Murphy is back as Donkey. Cameron Diaz is back as Fiona, completing a return she had been expected to make since the film was first confirmed.
Zendaya, who between Shrek 5 and The Odyssey appears to be methodically taking on the most anticipated film projects of 2027, voiced her enthusiasm for joining the franchise by simply being someone who had already posted in 2017 that she watched Shrek too often in her adulthood.
DreamWorks' Instagram account found that tweet and quoted it with "This aged well."
The film was originally set for 2026. Then it shifted to December 2026. Then to June 30, 2027, 26 years after the original and 17 years after Shrek Forever After, which is the date currently confirmed.
A Donkey spinoff is also in development separately, because DreamWorks correctly identified that Eddie Murphy returning to this role was a gift that could be used more than once.