'Zootopia' Joins the $1 Billion Club, Directors Talk Sequel Potential

To say that Disney's Zootopia (known in some countries as Zootropolis) has been a hit would be something of an understatement. Since it began rolling out around the globe back in March, it's been breaking record after record. Now, just as it arrives on Blu-ray, Digital and DVD in the US, it has passed another major milestone, passing $1 Billion at the global box office.

To put this in context, this is only the fourth animated film to reach the amount, following Toy Story 3, Frozen and last year's Minions. It also puts it past the lifetime box office haul of The Lion King in just a few months out there. It is currently also the second biggest film of the year so far.

As another claim to fame, it is also now the second biggest 'original' film of all time behind Avatar. That is to say that all the other films higher on the list are either sequels, spin-offs or adaptations.


With such a mammoth box office take, a sequel would seem like a no-brainer. Yet, you have to remember how long it took Disney to confirm a sequel to Frozen. It's reassuring that Walt Disney Animation Studio's current approach seems to be always to wait until the story is there. That said, of all the recent Disney movies, Zootopia seems arguably much more sequel-friendly than some others.

Co-directors Byron Howard and Rich Moore have been talking about sequel potential noting that there's great swathes of the city that were only briefly glimpsed in the movie that could become a part of a potential follow-up (or possibly a TV series), and there was even more that didn't make the final film.  "We cut a lot out during the making of the film. We introduced districts that we talked about that couldn’t fit in, other characters that we eliminated from the movie. There’s a vast potential for this world, so I’d love to see something more come from it", Byron Howard told EW. In other words, the filmmakers have created a whole expansive world that is just dying to be explored further.

They also discuss the future of Nick and Judy's relationship, and suggest that they would have to address the question of whether it would remain platonic, or take on a romantic dimension. But Rich Moore knows that either way part of the fan-base will be disappointed. "It will either be romantic, or it will stay a friendship, and those who ship [them] are going to go crazy, and those who just want them to be friends will say, ‘Why did you make it a romance?’ So we need to gird ourselves for that.”

Are you excited about the possibility more Zootopia? What would you like to see? Let us know in the comments or via our social media channels!