Shrek Is Being Lined Up For A Reboot

Your favourite bog-residing ogre is getting rebooted.

According to Deadline, NBCUniversal is looking to reinvigorate the animation series after buying up the Dreamworks studio in April this year.

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It will be spearheaded by Chris Meledandri, the man behind Illumination Entertainment, also owned by NBCUniversal and the studio that makes the ‘Despicable Me’ franchise.

“He is creatively going to try to help us figure out how to resurrect Shrek and take a lot of the existing DreamWorks franchises and add value as we create new franchises,” said NBCUniversal boss Steve Burke.

Though a case of diminishing returns, 'Shrek’, which told the fairytale story of a grumpy ogre, his ogress love and donkey friend, remains the highest-grossing animation franchise of all time.

With a total box office haul of $3.5 billion over five films, it beats lucrative series such as 'Ice Age’, 'Despicable Me’ and even 'Toy Story’ by some margin.

And though the first two movies were well received, the third was panned by critics – yet it still made nearly $800 million, so perhaps its little wonder the franchise is set to return.

A fourth movie, 'Shrek Forever After’ in 2010 did better at the hands of the critics, but made less at the box office, with a gross of $750 million.

However, the franchise also spawned the 'Puss In Boots’ spin-off movies, various short films, TV specials, video games and a long-running theatre production.

Based loosely on the 1990 children’s book 'Shrek!’ by William Steig, the movies starred Mike Myers as the ogre, alongside Cameron Diaz as Princess Fiona and Eddie Murphy as Donkey.

The likes of Vincent Cassel, Antonio Banderas, Amy Poehler, Jon Hamm, Justin Timberlake, John Cleese and Julie Andrews also featured among the cast.

Image credits: Dreamworks