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Zendaya may have been Meechee at one time, but now the award-winning actress is ditching the snow-covered mountains of the Himalayas for the swamps of the Shrek universe. That's right: Zendaya has been cast to play the swamp ogre's daughter in the upcoming fifth Shrek movie. 

Dreamworks revealed the news on Shrek's profile on X, the website formerly known as Twitter. The animation studio posted a short clip of Shrek, Fiona, Donkey, Pinocchio, and finally Zendaya's character all interacting in front of Shrek's Magic Mirror. The Mirror transforms itself into a horrifyingly modern touchscreen, with Shrek swiping vertically through images of himself like he was browsing a TikTok fan page. There are even icons on the lower right quadrant of the Mirror that suggest the existence of photo filters and whatever the Shrek equivalent of Twitter is - which supposes that the internet also exists. Zendaya's character swoops in at the right time to say, "Ew, Dad, bleh," speaking for all of us. 

Zendaya will be joining the core cast of Shrek characters, with Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, and Eddie Murphy all reprising their roles. Even Dreamworks's announcement video is impressed by the Dune actress's presence, uttering a "oh ho ho, damn" before revealing that Shrek 5 will be out in theaters for Christmas 2026. I think it's safe to say that Dreamworks is looking to let Shrek leave its target audience of children with this one.  

It's been a minute - 15 years to be exact - since the last Shrek movie came out. That means there are high schoolers walking around today who have never known a time when a mainline Shrek movie was playing in theaters (though they may have seen Puss in Boots: The Last Wish in 2022). I'm not saying this to be like, "my goodness, look at what the youths have been missing out on," because Shrek felt tired to me as a child by the time Shrek the Third rolled out in 2007. I suppose ogres do have layers, and are hard to perish because of it. 

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