I ran across the following story on Digg this afternoon:
Dreamworks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg has announced that there will be a Shrek 4 (2010) and Shrek 5.
read more | digg story
My first thought came to mind, “Crap”. Last weekend I went to go see Shrek 3 and while I did enjoy it, it did end up feeling like a big cash grab, and that they were scraping the bottom of the barrels as far as characters and storyline goes. The first Shrek movie was a classic, and the second was a great, funny follow-up – but I didn’t laugh that much the third time around.
Some of the commenters on Digg brought up the point that it’s probably easier for the animation studios to keep pumping money into sequels, as they don’t need to develop new computer models for new characters. At the same time, that’s the necessary cost of being innovative. Dreamworks has a great animation studio, but this would really be a big black eye for them.
I feel bad for kids today and think about when I have my kids. There just don’t seem to be any of the great, classic kids’ movies anymore. I know there isn’t an abundant amount of fairy tales and we have probably exhausted a lot of the classic Western stories, but there is a world full of culture that could provide new fairy tales and great stories to tell.