Nearly a decade after becoming both a box office and critical hit — and going on to win an Oscar — Zootopia is back.
Ginnifer Goodwin and Jason Bateman return for the sequel as detectives Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde, who this time around are sent on a make-or-break mission chasing after mysterious pit viper Gary De’Snake (voiced by Ke Huy Quan) as his arrival disrupts the balance of the metropolis.
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“I may have known that this was coming for a really long time, but I was chomping at the bit, as it were, to get back into the studio,” Goodwin told The Hollywood Reporter at the L.A. premiere of Zootopia 2 on Thursday, after the original came out in 2016. “I would call them every year and I’d be like, ‘Is this the year?’ And they’d be like, ‘We’re really busy with a lot of things, just hold on tight.’ So I was waiting and waiting.”
The star was also quick to add, “I’m putting everything out there trying to manifest a number three, after a much shorter break. All we’ve got to do is get everyone in the world to go see the movie, it’s not a lot to ask.”
Jared Bush (who also serves as chief creative officer of Walt Disney Animation) and Byron Howard co-directed the sequel after also being involved in the first film, and they too have their eyes on doing more with the franchise.
With Zootopia 2 being “the biggest, most complex movie we’ve ever done at Disney Animation in 100 years, in the whole history of the studio,” as Howard revealed, Bush added that Judy and Nick “are our favorite characters.” He continued, “If it goes well, we would spend the rest of our careers in the world of Zootopia. It’s the most fun place in the world and there’s so much left to explore. We’ve actually only seen one city on one continent on one planet. There’s quite a lot more stories to tell.”
If there’s more to come, there is also hope that Goodwin and Bateman can actually record their lines together, after the actress teased that for the last two movies “they have to separate us, it’s a whole thing” because “I get the giggles really, really, really badly. I waste everyone’s time. He can’t not make me laugh.”
But, she added, “They built these booths where they are going to be able to put us, if we can get a third one, they can put us in the same space and I won’t ruin all the takes because if I’m laughing they can isolate that sound out. We have to do this just so I can experience it and not just have to wonder what it is he did in his recording.”
The sequel also features Shakira, Tommy Chong and Nate Torrence as returning voices, with newcomers including Quan, Fortune Feimster, Patrick Warburton, Quinta Brunson, Wilmer Valderrama, Macaulay Culkin and Brenda Song. Howard emphasized that the film has the biggest speaking cast of any Disney movie ever, with over 70 speaking roles — including many alums from past Walt Disney Animation films like Frozen and Encanto.
“The fact that they would bring all the voices, pretty much, of all the movies they’ve done before and say, ‘Hey, let’s attach them to this thing,’ was actually very beautiful,” said Valderrama, who worked on 2021’s Encanto.
Feimster, who plays beaver Nibbles Maplestick, also admitted that “when you’re in the booth you honestly have no idea what it’s going to be. I joked to Ginnifer I had no idea that my character was like this main part of the movie, I really did not know. I knew it was like a character you would see in the movie several times but when the four characters were like walking down the road [in the promo] I was like, ‘Oh my god, I’m like a main part!’ I truly had no idea.”
Zootopia 2 hits theaters Nov. 26.
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