Now here’s confidence for you. There are still ten days until animated threequel, Shrek The Third, opens in the States, but its parent studio, Dreamworks Animation, are so confident that the return of the big green ogre will rock the box office to Spidey 3-type levels that they’ve already hired a director for Shrek 4.
And the lucky guy stepping up to the plate? Mike Mitchell.
Now, if it’s the Mike Mitchell we’re thinking of (because there are more than a few running around out there), then it’s the guy who directed Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo and, more recently, the Disney comedy, Sky High.
While that mini-CV may not inspire a great deal of confidence (although we have a soft spot for them both, truth be told), we feel that Paramount have made the right choice - Empire interviewed Mitchell at Comic-Con a couple of years back, and he has a twisted, devilish sense of humour that may be just right for the oh-so-post-modern Shrek franchise.
Plus!!!! Mitchell has a background in animation – he started off in animated shorts (that is to say, short films that are animated, and not that he was wearing shorts that had been animated) and worked, albeit briefly, on Spongebob Squarepants – which explains the live-action-to-animation step which mirrors the career path of original Shrek director, Andrew Adamson.
Now, of course, this is all subject to Shrek The Third making tons of money when it opens in the States (and over here, at the end of June), but we looked at our Big Chart Of Sure Things today, and that very prospect was right at the top, along with Liverpool winning the Champions League on penalties and us pulling a sickie at 4.15 today to watch Deal Or No Deal. So Mitchell’s next gig would appear to be assured (even if a plotline hasn’t been shored up yet; Tim Sullivan is currently on scripting duties)… we wish the guy well.