‘Shrek 5’ Gets ‘Austin Powers’ Screenwriter

Shrek 5 is happening people. With each passing day, we come a few steps closer to its completion. Call it a miracle. Call it the end of times. Call it a fleeting studio’s desperate attempt to cash in on their most beloved and financially successful property, even though they effectively retired the series nearly ten years ago. But it’s coming. Prepare yourself for its big, green, pointed ears arrival in 2019.

Today sees the project’s first real development since it was announced back in July. Michael McCullers, an SNL veteran best known for co-writing the Austin Powers sequels with Mike Myers, agreed to pen the new film.

The news came from The Hollywood News (via ComingSoon.net). Walt Dohrn, a Shrek 2 screenwriter and the director behind DreamWorks Animation’s upcoming Trolls, and Mike Mitchell, the director behind Shrek Forever After, revealed the project update. Mitchell notes Shrek 5 has “a pretty good story” and that McCullers “came up with a really great idea that they’re exploring.” Dohrn then followed with the following: “There’s more story to tell there and we’re ready to help tell it for sure,” as if he’s addressing everyone questioning the film’s existence on Twitter and elsewhere.

There’s no word yet on who will direct, but Dohrn and Mitchell are interested. So it’s pretty likely they’ll get the job. With that in mind, they also expressed an interest in making a sequel to Mitchell’s Sky High, which would be pretty neat, even though it’s over ten years later and the original wasn’t necessarily a box office smash. It’s Disney, though, so we’ll see what happens there.

Shrek 5 will not be McCullers’s first time working with DreamWorks Animation. He also wrote next year’s The Boss Baby, which released its first trailer today. He also contributed to 2014’s overlooked Mr. Peabody & Sherman. In addition to their Austin Powers work, Myers and McCullers also wrote the unproduced Sprockets together, based on the popular recurring SNL sketch. It’s among the most well-known screenplays that didn’t come to completion, at least in comedy circles. McCullers’s also wrote and directed Baby Mama (what’s with this dude and babies?), and — outside of his DreamWorks Animation work — he also wrote the upcoming Hotel Transylvania 3 for Sony Animation.