Eddie Murphy Just Told Us What Shrek Spinoff Is Really About & Not Everyone’s Happy
Shrek’s long-debated spinoff starts its production in a couple of months, and fans wish the creators had had better ideas.
After causing quite a stir several months ago, the Shrek franchise is back to the newsfeed, once again bringing in something else that everyone will be concerned about.
Announced last year, both Shrek 5 and the so far unnamed Donkey spinoff are currently in the development, with the former consuming all of its creators’ time ahead of its release in December next year.
Despite many fans’ hope to revive their nostalgia thanks to an unexpectedly announced instalment, Shrek 5 turned out to be quite a controversial matter when the first teaser was released back in February.
Now that many have no other choice but to keep the same hope for the Donkey movie, this one might also sound a bit disappointing even before being pushed into production.
Eddie Murphy Says Donkey Spinoff Will Be About “His Dragon Wife and His Kids”
Even though there were plenty of options for the spinoff’s creators to choose from, considering that Donkey is arguably one of the most compelling characters in the entire franchise, they still had to go with the easiest one, according to Donkey’s voice actor Eddie Murphy.
“Donkey's going to be like how Puss in Boots had his own movie, Donkey's going to have his own movie, own little story with his dragon wife and his kids that are half-dragon and half-donkeys. They've written this funny story. We're doing that, starting that in September”, the actor revealed in a conversation with ScreenRant recently.
He also gave an update on how things are going for Shrek 5, saying that the future movie hasn’t yet reached the animation stage.
“We're still in the booth, and literally, we're still doing Shrek. We start in September on Donkey, we're doing a Donkey one, and that'll be three years from now, but we're about two years into Shrek 5”, Murphy said.
‘Shrek’ Fans Thought Donkey Spinoff Would Do Better
Upon both movies’ announcement last year, the franchise’s fans were divided over whether it was needed to go with more movies anyway, but thought some ideas would actually work out.
As many fans noted, the spinoff would do justice to the character only if he isn’t overpowered by more significant characters like Shrek or just way grander figures (literally) like Dragon.
Since Eddie Murphy confirmed that the spinoff would be centring on Donkey’s family life after Shrek’s events, there might be no way for fans to ever see the character’s background story and how exactly he came to be who he was.
“It would be so much more interesting finding out how he came to talk and have his personality. And how did he end up being that old lady's property that tried to sell him at the beginning of Shrek 1. Those are the only ideas I have but it would be much better than this new shrek 5 idea”, Redditor No_Sound_4730 complained in a thread.
“Maybe have an adventure with Donkey and the side characters could be Gingy, Pinnochio, the Big Bad Wolf and the 3 pigs. They go on a road trip after being excluded by Shrek who wants to have alone time with his family. Dragon and the Dronkeys for some reason stay home”, WaluigiFiesta45 suggested in another Reddit thread.
In the meantime, Shrek 5 is now scheduled for a release on December 23, 2026.
