Jeffrey Katzenberg of DreamWorks Animation confirms that the Shrek franchise will only go to five movies.

(Source: www.theage.com.au)

DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg says that the multi-million dollar Shrek franchise will be done after the fifth movie.

"It's a finite story, has been from the beginning and I think that's part of its integrity, part of its strength, that we're not thinking this up as we go," he said in an interview with Australian newspaper, The Sunday Age.

According to Katzenberg, it will take a further two movies to finish that "finite story," plus a Christmas special, Shrek the Halls, which will air on ABC in December.

The first Shrek movie was a loose adaptation of Shrek!, William Steig's 1990 children's story about a young ogre who is kicked out of parent's house so he can live his own life. After many adventures, he marries a princess ogre even more repulsive than he.

Katzenberg and director Andrew Adamson changed the irreverent novel into a fractured fairy tale that mocked The Walt Disney Company (Katzenberg's former employer) and their animated classics at every turn. Shrek's villain, Lord Farquaad (say that name five times very fast) was modeled after Disney's then-CEO Michael Eisner, who refused to give Katzenberg a promotion after he spearheaded Disney's 1990's "animation renaissance," and made 1994's The Lion King into a box office smash. The first two Shrek movies were filled with slams against the Mouse House, a situation that seems to have abated now that Shrek the Halls will air on Disney-owned ABC.

"Ultimately," Katzenberg says, "we will come back to understand how Shrek arrived in that swamp. We will reveal his story."

Walking away from Shrek won't be easy for Jeffrey Katzenberg and company. So far, the franchise has made over $1.4 billion for DreamWorks Animation, and sold 90 million DVD's worldwide. Shrek 2 has the distinction of being the third highest grossing film of all time, right behind Titanic and Star Wars.

Shrek the Third, the latest in the franchise, opened to a whopping $121.6 million in its first weekend, the highest ever opening for an animated movie. It has since gone on to cross the $200 million mark, confirming its blockbuster status.

However, many reviewers were less than kind to Shrek the Third, with many saying the bloom was off the series. In his otherwise positive review, Willie Waffle of WaffleMovies warned against another sequel.

"Shrek The Third is a funny visit with familiar characters that will make you laugh," he wrote," but we don’t learn much new about them, don’t have the same emotional response and don’t leave hoping for a fourth (flick)."

Glen Whipp of the L.A. Daily News was harsher. "Invention has given way to formula — and babies," he wrote. "rek has jumped the shark."

"Of course it is," says Katzenberg, when asked whether it's too much to ask that Shrek the Third possess the same vitality the first two movies had. "That's a criticism that has been made, but . . . it has almost no validity to it. How is it possible that the third could have that level of surprise?"

Shrek the Third's lousy notices don't bode well for DreamWorks, since their other movies haven't made nearly the same splash at the box office.

Last year's Over the Hedge, 2004's Shark Tale and 2005's Madagascar were all solid hits, making $150 million, $160 million and $193 million at the U.S. box office respectively. None of them, however, crossed the $200 million line that denotes a blockbuster.

Other DreamWorks flicks didn't fare so well. Movies like 2003's Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas or last fall's Flushed Away, didn't even make their studio costs back during their theatrical runs. DreamWorks Animation even had to apply for a $109 million tax write-down in late 2006, in order to cover Flushed Away's losses.

Unlike competitor Pixar, which rarely does sequels and has never had a flop, DreamWorks Animation doesn't seem like such a contender if the Shrek movies are taken out of the mix. They have a solid slate coming up, with Jerry Seinfeld's Bee Movie coming in November, Kung Fu Panda and Madagascar 2: The Crate Escape in 2008, plus Shrek 4 arriving in 2010.

But whatever happens to DreamWorks Animation in the post-Shrek years, Katzenberg will always consider those movies to be crucial to the studio's development.

"They defined us as a company in terms of what a DreamWorks animated movie is and can be and should be, so they really helped us find ourselves," says Katzenberg. "That first Shrek saved the company financially. We're here today because of it. It's been a great blessing. I refer to it as the gift that keeps on giving."