With Shrek’s box office tally pushing US$176 million in 3,715 theaters at press time, pretty much everyone involved in the CGI movie’s creation is now a hot commodity. DreamWorks has already signed screenwriters Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio to pen a sequel, and producer John Williams was recently tapped by Germany’s Greenlight Media to try his hand at developing and producing animated and live-action kids flicks.

As part of a multi-picture deal, Williams will start off on a US$30-million animated feature adaptation of Greenlight’s TV series Simsala Grimm, which parodies the famous tales of the Brothers Grimm. The film will be produced by Williams’ DreamWorks-based Vanguard Films for a 2003 international release.

Greenlight COO Nikolaus Weil says the company is currently scouting for four more feature film concepts for Williams to produce, and it’s particularly interested in established book properties because they are already partially developed. Greenlight will fully finance most of the features covered under the agreement, and the company is looking for projects that are budgeted at around US$25 million.