The #NotMyShrek Movement Wants to Pull A Sonic on An Uncanny ‘Shrek 5’

This is not my beautiful swamp, this is not my beautiful ogre.

Fifteen years after Shrek superfans last saw their favorite belching, grumbling, green-skinned god on the big screen, we finally have a sneak peek at the next Shrek film following 2010’s underwhelming Shrek Forever After. Shrek 5, which DreamWorks and Universal plan to release in December of 2026, will take fans into the future of Far Far Away and show Shrek as an aged family man with superstar Zendaya playing one of his teenage daughters. 

While it may seem a little premature for a distributor to start releasing teasers for a movie that’s ostensibly aimed at children nearly two full years before its release, Shrek 5’s distant release date is a blessing in disguise if you ask the #NotMyShrek movement that instantly assembled following the release of the clip below:

Notwithstanding the fact that the horny, depraved, disturbing and definitely-not-PG Shrek memes that destroyed the internet’s sense of shame in the early 2010s are now canon within DreamWorks’ flagship animated universe, the introduction of TikTok to the fairytale world and the distracting addition of one of Hollywood’s most exposed A-listers to the Shrek cast, this teaser felt profoundly wrong to so many Shrek fans because, well, who the hell is that glossy green egg speaking with Mike Myers’ voice?? 

“his eyes are too close together his head shape is too eggy his philtrum isn’t pronounced enough his wrinkles are wrong #NotMyShrek,” one animation fan explained of the specific differences between the real Shrek and the misshapen imposter featured in the Shrek 5 trailer.

The future strategy of these outraged fans is obvious from the jump — everyone who is displeased with Shrek’s new look, shape and philtrum will flood Twitter with mocking memes and hyperbolic threats of self-harm if DreamWorks doesn’t correct their mistakes posthaste, much how the Sonic the Hedgehog fandom bullied Paramount Pictures into a post-post-production redesign of the title character prior to the film’s release back in 2020.

Seeing as the previously outraged fans rewarded the changes to Sonic the Hedgehog with massive box office returns that led to the half-live-action, half-animated movie turning into a full-on film franchise, DreamWorks certainly has incentive to listen to their loudest, most emotional fans and change course before December 2026. 

However, any and all #NotMyShrek activists who expect a quick fix for the visual abomination that DreamWorks just released should be warned that, for such a massive and expensive project as Shrek 5, redesigning and reanimating the title character will take a great deal of time, so don’t lose heart if the real Shrek doesn’t return for a long while — it ain’t ogre ‘till it’s ogre.