The Next Shrek? Why ‘Forgotten Island’ is Being Hailed as DreamWorks’ Next Great Fantasy Franchise

LOS ANGELES — With the global box office currently bowing to the plastic might of Toy Story 5, Hollywood’s attention is already pivoting toward the autumn, where a quiet revolution is brewing at DreamWorks Animation.

Industry insiders and critics are increasingly uniform in their assessment: the studio behind Shrek, How to Train Your Dragon, and The Wild Robot may have just unearthed its next multi-billion-pound fantasy juggernaut in the form of Forgotten Island (trailer below).

Scheduled to hit UK cinemas on 25th September 2026, the original feature film generated rapturous applause following an exclusive "work-in-progress" screening at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France. Rather than relying on safe, well-worn Western fairy tales, the movie plunges headfirst into a vibrant, high-stakes epic completely rooted in Philippine mythology, a move being hailed by media analysts as a massive, defining step change for mainstream studio animation.

The Price of Adulthood: A High-Concept Premise

The film's emotional architecture is steered by the creative duo of Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado, the filmmakers behind the critically and commercially adored Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.

Set against a nostalgic 1990s backdrop, Forgotten Island follows Jo (voiced by Grammy and Oscar-winning musician H.E.R.) and Raissa (voiced by international star Liza Soberano), two lifelong best friends on the verge of drifting apart as high school graduation looms and migration threatens to separate them.

While celebrating their final night together, the duo stumble through a mystical portal and find themselves trapped on the fantastical island of Nakali. The land is a breathtaking, maximalist wonderland heavily populated by legendary creatures they grew up hearing stories about from their families, ranging from the majestic, colorful Sarimanok bird to a well-meaning but hapless were-aspin (weredog) named Raww, voiced by Dave Franco.

However, the film’s central hook subverts standard family-adventure tropes with a deeply emotional twist: the longer a human remains on Nakali, the more their memories fade. To escape back to reality, Jo and Raissa discover they must pay the ultimate cosmic toll: entirely erasing every memory of their friendship.

A Visual Gamble with Anime DNA

Beyond its bittersweet narrative premise, Forgotten Island is generating immense buzz for its radical, boundary-pushing visual identity.

While the baseline film utilizes DreamWorks' signature, highly textured 3D computer graphics, the directors have integrated a series of stylized, hand-drawn 2D animation sequences during flashback scenes. These segments directly emulate the hyper-kinetic energy of iconic 1990s anime series like Dragon Ball Z, Street Fighter, and Sailor Moon, shifting styles depending on which character is recalling a specific memory.

To ensure authentic cultural fidelity, DreamWorks partnered with Manila-based Snipple Animation. At the film's Annecy showcase, Crawford and Mercado emphasized that Filipino culture served as the literal structural bedrock of the project, rather than a superficial aesthetic skin.

The Creative and Cultural Architecture of 'Forgotten Island'

The Franchise Potential

For Universal Pictures, Forgotten Island represents the holy grail of modern cinema: a completely original, non-sequel intellectual property with massive expansion potential.

The initial teaser trailer triggered a wave of emotional viral traction across Southeast Asia and global diaspora communities, with viewers praising everything from the authentic inclusion of local transportation like Jeepneys to the meticulous replication of anik-anik (the cultural habit of collecting small trinkets and charms).

By targeting a slightly older, teenage demographic while retaining the colorful wonder necessary to captivate young children, DreamWorks is utilizing the exact commercial blueprint that turned How to Train Your Dragon into a cross-media empire. If Crawford and Mercado can replicate the same storytelling maturity that made The Last Wish a global phenomenon, the journey to Nakali looks destined to become the defining cinematic voyage of the year.