Shrek Forever After

May 21

The Pitch: 'It's Shrek's midlife crisis,' says director Mike Mitchell of DreamWorks Animation's fourth and final installment of the 'Shrek' franchise. Bored by his domesticexistence with Fiona and their ogre children, Shrek signs a magic contract to get back just one day of his carefree, premarital life But the contract, drawn up by the film's villain, Rumpelstiltskin, instead catapults Shrek into an alternateuniverse in which he was never born -- and where Rumpelstiltskin has a shot at taking over the kingdom.

The Prospects: With a boost from 3-D, now seen as de rigueur for big-budget animation, the movie is expected to gross as much as $1 billion world-wide. (DreamWorks has already scheduled a spin-off, 'Puss in Boots,' for late fall 2011. It tells how he 'got to be the way he is, how he was once heroic and now he's lazy -- and fat,' says Antonio Banderas, who provides the cat's voice.)

Lauren A.E. Schuker / Ethan Smith

• director [di´rektə] n.指导者；....长；导演 (初中英语单词)
• domestic [də´mestik] a.家庭的；本国的 (初中英语单词)
• existence [ig´zistəns] n.存在；生存；生活 (初中英语单词)
• installment [in´stɔ:lmənt] n.分期付款 (高中英语单词)
• alternate [ɔ:l´tə:nit, ´ɔ:ltə:neit] a.交替的 v.轮流 (高中英语单词)
• universe [´ju:nivə:s] n.天地；全人类；银河系 (高中英语单词)
• billion [´biljən] num.万亿 (高中英语单词)
• heroic [hi´rəuik] a.英雄的，英勇的 (高中英语单词)
• villain [´vilən] n.坏人；恶棍；反面角色 (英语四级单词)
• franchise [´fræntʃaiz] n.选举权；特许权 (英语六级单词)
• taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)