"Shrek" Sequelizes--Again
DreamWorks is counting its hits before they've hit.
The studio that Steven Spielberg helped build has ordered up a third and possibly fourth Shrek tale and a sequel to the not-yet-released Shark Tale.
The news comes four months before Shrek 2 opens in theaters, and about eight months before Shark Tale surfaces.
Like the Shrek movies, Shark Tale is a CGI-animated flick, with mob-connected fish in place of fairy-tale figures.
Shrek 2, opening May 21, finds its titular ogre (voiced by Mike Myers) and his princess bride (Cameron Diaz) traveling to her folks' to announce their storybook union.
The screenwriting team of Shrek 2 has been hired to start fantasizing Shrek 3, Variety says. That film will have the big green guy pulling up a chair at King Arthur's round table. The studio is mum on plot details for the proposed Shrek 4.
It's assumed that Myers, Diaz and Eddie Murphy (who goofs around as Donkey) have been locked in for the new production. It's not unusual for an animation project to get going before the vocal stars are set. In the case of Shrek 2, Diaz's signing (for a reported $10 million) was leaked more than six months after the sequel was.
Shark Tale, opening October 1, features the familiar sounds of Will Smith, Robert De Niro, Renée Zellweger and Angelina Jolie. No word on what a Shark Tale 2 would entail.
Variety portrays DreamWorks as eager to build bankable 'toon franchises, as opposed to, we guess, continuing to detonate bombs such as 2002's Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and 2003's Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas.
The first Shrek was 2001's third-highest-grossing movie, with a $267.7 million take.





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