The adventure began in 2001, when audiences were first introduced to the stinky, shameless, obnoxious yet entirely lovable in the end, ogre Shrek in the film with the same name. Come May 2010, the fairytale ends with “Shrek Forever After,” which sees the anti-hero hit midlife crisis, as USA Today informs.

After rescuing the princess, wooing her, saving her again, getting her parents to accept him and countless other adventures worthy of a genuine prince, let alone an apparently repulsive ogre, Shrek will see his entire life turned upside down in the fourth and final film in the franchise. Director Mike Mitchell promises that Shrek’s life will take a course not unfamiliar to average Joes, but without becoming boring or anything along those lines.

The fourth film will apparently have the once-scary ogre as a normal family guy who has lost his “roar.” “He has lost his roar. It used to send villagers running away in terror. Now they run to him and ask him to sign their pitchforks and torches,” Mitchell says in a new interview cited by USA Today as to what fans should expect for the curtain call on the Shrek franchise. A first trailer for the film will air in theatres this December, ahead of James Cameron’s “Avatar.”

Of course, that’s just the starting point. “To regain his ogre mojo, he strikes a deal with Rumpelstiltskin, the wee troublemaker who popped up briefly in Shrek 2 and 3. Though certain websites wrongly, and somewhat bizarrely, list Paul McCartney as the voice of the vile schemer, it is actually non-Beatle Walt Dohrn, the film’s head of story, who does the honors. Of course, the pact goes awry and Shrek must confront what life would be like in Far Far Away if he had never existed. That translates into Donkey being forced into cart-pulling duty, fat and lazy Puss in Boots trading his sword for a pink bow and the underhanded Rumpelstiltskin ruling the kingdom,” the aforementioned publication further says of the plot.

As expected, the fourth “Shrek” film will see the return of Mike Meyers, Cameron Diaz and Eddie Murphy reprise voice duties for their characters Shrek, Princess Fiona, and Donkey. In true “Shrek” tradition, new characters will also be introduced, like ogre-hunting witches and other ogres who are part of one major resistance group.