Zootopia 2<\/a>\u201d is Byron Howard\u2019s fourth Oscar nomination, the filmmaker and animator insists that the thrill of being recognized \u201cnever gets old.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cHonestly, it\u2019s a great ride every time and such a surprise,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
While it\u2019s understandable that Howard is being modest about the nomination, the humongous success of \u201cZootopia 2\u201d \u2014 both financially and critically \u2014 means that it was always likely to be a contender for the Academy Award for best animated feature. \u201cZootopia 2,\u201d which Howard co-directed with Jared Bush, was the highest-grossing American film of 2025 (earning $1.8 billion worldwide), while its story of police officers Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) pursuing Gary De\u2019Snake (Ke Huy Quan) was lauded for being fast, funny, thoughtful and surprisingly emotional.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Howard was asleep at his home in Los Angeles when the nominations were announced at 5:30 a.m. Jan. 22. The sudden barrage of calls and messages helped him realize that he\u2019d once again be part of the awards season roller coaster.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are awards in other countries, but Los Angeles goes insane over it for four months. I actually love seeing people go through it for the first time because it is so bonkers.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the first people to congratulate Howard was his mother, who lives in Seattle. (Howard was raised in Issaquah.) Seattle is where Howard first fell in love with movies, as his father was a cinephile who would take him to see all the latest releases, like \u201cStar Wars\u201d and the “Indiana Jones” films, as well as bona fide classics made by Akira Kurosawa.<\/p>\n
When it comes to the one film that inspired Howard to become a director, he always cites \u201cSuperman: The Movie.\u201d The combination of Richard Donner\u2019s direction and John Williams\u2019 score proved just how powerful and transformative Hollywood movies could be.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why, even now after a quartet of nominations for \u201cBolt,\u201d \u201cEncanto\u201d and the two \u201cZootopia\u201d films, Howard still basks in the glitz, glamour and celebrity of getting to attend the Oscars. At the Oscars Luncheon, which was held on Feb. 10 and saw all the nominees gathering for a meal and photo, Howard got to meet a number of filmmakers and creatives that he\u2019d usually never get the chance to interact with.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get to sit next to documentarians, producers, actors, short directors that you\u2019d never ordinarily meet. It\u2019s all randomly seated. This year, for the photo, I actually got one of the best placements, because Leonardo DiCaprio was right behind me. I didn\u2019t even realize at the time because they moved me there.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the day of the Oscars itself \u2014 which takes place on Sunday \u2014 Howard says he and his fellow \u201cZootopia 2\u201d producers and filmmakers will have made a loose plan of who they\u2019re going to thank onstage, if they win. However, when he won the same prize for \u201cZootopia\u201d in 2017, he was actually more worried about tripping over his oversized trousers than what he was going to say.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember thinking as I walked up, my trousers were kind of loose, and I was just thinking, \u2018Don\u2019t trip, don\u2019t trip, don\u2019t trip.\u2019 I\u2019m not used to dressing up like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having also won the Academy Award for best animated feature for \u201cEncanto\u201d in 2022, Howard is now used to giving acceptance speeches. He admits that they can be rather intimidating, especially as \u201cthere\u2019s literally a countdown clock staring at you and the venue is so huge,\u201d but the adrenaline usually kicks in and pushes him through.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Academy also shows nominees a video that guides them on how to give a good speech. \u201cIt says be genuine, be sincere, don\u2019t just do a list of \u2018thank you.\u2019 Then they show great speeches from the past, like Halle Berry. In fact, one of the ones they showed was Ke Huy Quan when he won for \u2018Everything Everywhere All at Once,\u2019 because he is such a genuine person.\u201d<\/p>\n
The mention of Quan leads Howard to reflect on the huge success of \u201cZootopia 2,\u201d something he admits he still can\u2019t get his head around.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d hoped that it would do at least as well as the first one, but I would never have guessed it would get those kinds of numbers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Howard believes that the nine-year gap between films meant there was a desire from audiences to catch up with the characters and see how they could grow. He also notes that the benefit of having animals as characters is that there\u2019s a universal appeal to them. \u201cNo matter where you are in the world, you can see yourself in them,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Most of all, though, he\u2019s proud that the film reflected the current political strife that\u2019s blighting countries across the world while still being entertaining.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that people liked that it talked about the difficulties of where the world is right now. There are powerful folks trying to pull us apart. We have to hold on to each other a little tighter. We didn\u2019t want to sugarcoat any of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Howard is adamant that there won\u2019t be a nine-year gap between the second and third installments of the \u201cZootopia\u201d franchise, insisting he\u2019d love to \u201cplay in the sandbox forever,\u201d although he did add the reminder, \u201cThese films take a minimum of between three and five years to make.\u201d For the time being, though, his thoughts turn to the Oscars, celebrating cinema and \u2014 hopefully \u2014 not tripping up over his trousers in front of his peers and the millions watching at home.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yakimaherald.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even though \u201cZootopia 2\u201d is Byron Howard\u2019s fourth Oscar nomination, the filmmaker and animator insists that the thrill of being recognized \u201cnever gets old.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cHonestly, it\u2019s a great ride every time and such a surprise,\u201d he says. While it\u2019s understandable that Howard is being modest about the nomination, the humongous success of \u201cZootopia 2\u201d \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2325218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[21741],"class_list":["post-2325217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Byron-Howard-on-\u2018Zootopia-2-Oscar-nomination-his-love-of.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2325217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2325217"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2325217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2325219,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2325217\/revisions\/2325219"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2325218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2325217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2325217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2325217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}