Shrek 5 (Predictably) Delayed

A few weeks (months?) ago, Marvel delayed both Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars from May to December of 2026 and 2027 respectively. The issue with this was that, because Marvel had held the May dates for so long, the other studios had slated movies for release in December. Now, the release date shuffle has begun, as DreamWorks has blinked and moved Shrek 5 off its December 23, 2026, release date.

Instead, Shrek 5 will be released on June 30th, 2027, which is more in line with the winning strategy of animated family movies. Universal, DreamWorks, and Disney have all had success in recent years, releasing family-friendly films over the summer break. The interesting thing about this is that June 0f 2027 is absolutely stacked with family films. June 30th is designed to get the long weekend for Independence Day, but this movie is now releasing under a week after Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse. The week before that is another family-friendly animated film: Pixar's original film Gatto, about a cat living in Venice. The week before that is the sequel to the live-action remake of How To Train Your Dragon, which is the fifth highest-grossing movie of 2025 as of writing this.

I buy that Shrek 5 will likely eclipse Gatto because Disney has had problems with selling new Pixar movies that aren't sequels, but they probably could have had better success opening a week later against A Quiet Place Part III. Spider-Verse is the wild card. This is a much-anticipated movie with crossover appeal. Shrek 5 will have nostalgia, but legacy sequels only work if the movie is good. Shrek 5 could end up in the same situation as Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Space Jam 2, Terminator: Dark Fate, Rambo: Last Blood, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, or the Fantastic Beast movies if it isn't great and a box office environment conducive to its death will not help.

Now we wait to see if Dune: Part Three moves off the slot or if we get a Barbenheimer situation. Dunesday maybe?