Zootopianote is the 55th film in the Disney Animated Canon, set in a World of Funny Animals.
Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) is an idealistic, cheery and optimistic young bunny who's left home to be a police officer in the big city of Zootopia. There, she encounters Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman), a fast-talking fox Con Artist whom she manages to blackmail into helping her solve a missing persons case. Soon, however, the two become involved in a conspiracy that threatens all of Zootopia, which forces them to overcome their differences and ultimately become friends.
The film was released in North America on March 4, 2016 (it had an earlier release in Europe and Asia), and is the third Disney Animated Feature to use exclusively anthropomorphic animal characters after 1973's Robin Hood and 2005's Chicken Little (outside of The '40s package films, at least).
Watch the teaser trailer here
, the second trailer here and the third trailer here.
The film's junior novelization was released on January 19, 2016 in both print and eBook formats, along with an essential guide book and several other tie-in products. A read-along with a CD featuring character voices was also released in early February. In early August, a Hidden Object Game called Zootopia: Crime Files was released for iOS, Android and Windows 10.
In December 2020, Disney announced that Zootopia+, a short-form Animated Anthology series focusing on the film's secondary characters was being produced for Disney+. The show premiered on November 9, 2022. A comic book series was released on January 8, 2025, published by Dynamite Entertainment. A sequel, Zootopia 2, is in development, set for release on November 26, 2025, with Goodwin and Bateman reprising their roles. This film is set to introduce reptiles in to the world of Zootopia, with Ke Huy Quan playing the snake Gary.
Character tropes go on to the Characters Sheet.
Zootopia provides examples of:
- Advertised Extra: Many of the minor characters, such as Finnick, Yax, Gazelle, and even some background characters who hardly get any lines, can be seen throughout the film's advertisements, hanging around Nick and Judy on posters or videos used to promote the movie.
- Advertising by Association: Advertisements for the movie mentions "from the creators of Frozen and Big Hero 6". An interesting example of the trope as none of the writers, directors, or producers for Zootopia were on the primary creative teams for either of these films and oddly most of the trailers overlook the successful Disney films the directors of Zootopia were directly responsible for like Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph.
- American Kirby Is Hardcore: Inverted. The US trailers focus more on comedy, while the Japanese trailer is more serious and focuses on the action and drama, which is quite typical for Japanese trailers of Disney films.
- Amusing Injuries: In the teaser, Nick trips Judy because they're "natural enemies", not realizing she's a cop. After Nick tries to escape, she shoots him with an elephant tranquilizer gun that results in him face-planting on the ground from what looks like the ceiling.
- By the Lights of Their Eyes: In the US Teaser Trailer, Nick claps and the light goes out, leaving only Judy's eyes visible and blinking.
- Camera Abuse: "Selfie Is Everything" has Nick walk into the camera and bump his head because he's looking at his phone.
- Dictionary Opening: The teaser trailer employs some aspects of the trope. It has the word "anthropomorphic" appear in large Courier typeface, which Nick then pushes away while the narrator defines it as "a big, fancy word that means they walk around on two feet, they do not go to work nude..." as key words from the dialogue appear on screen in the same type face. However, the definition never appears in its entirety as an actual dictionary entry.
- Distracted by the Sexy: In a Serbian promotional ad, Nick and Judy are walking down the street past a Storefront Television Display when Gazelle appears on the TVs. Nick becomes transfixed on her as she's Shaking the Rump, forcing an annoyed Judy to drag him away.
- Faster Than They Look: Although Clawhauser is quite portly, in the very first trailer he is shown effortlessly jogging and keeping pace with a male gazelle who is bounding across the screen.
- Hand-or-Object Underwear: When the teaser's voice-over mentions that the anthropomorphic animals are wearing clothes, even though Animals Lack Attributes, naked Nick immediately hides his privates with his bushy tail.
- Instant Sedation: When Judy shoots Nick with her tranquilizer gun, he immediately drops. Then a wildebeest eats the dart (as the green fluff on it looks like grass), takes a few steps and then face-plants.
- Never Trust a Trailer: Despite the incredible financial and critical success Zootopia turned out to be, the initial advertising campaign leading up to the movie's release is a testament to a marketing department that was clearly unsure of how to present it. It didn't help that it was released in the U.S. in March, a time of year that studios traditionally release movies they don't always have confidence in. This resulted in a higher degree of odd decisions for the trailers:
- The teaser trailer feels the need to explain what "anthropomorphic" means even though it is from Disney, a studio that already has many anthropomorphic films in its canon. It gives a lot of screen time to Nick making him appear to be the protagonist, doesn't make it particularly clear that the bunny is actually female, and contains the groan-worthy "be-fur" pun. Also Judy's tranquilizer gun and Nick's phone shown in the trailer never appear in the film.
- Early ads show Gazelle as a play on Adele while in the film, it turns out she's actually Shakira.
- The second US trailer makes you think that the other police officers are laughing at Judy because of her assignment to parking duty. While not particularly supportive, her colleagues are never shown to be dismissive either — and during the assignment scene, Judy is in fact the last cop in the room.
- Subsequent trailers greatly overplayed the Sloth/DMV scene. Because the essence of the joke is the extreme slowness of the sloths, having so much exposure in the trailers caused the scene when it appeared in the movie to go from painfully amusing to downright excruciating.
- European trailers have a version that is set to the music of "Fireball" by Pitbull, which made it seem like the story is about con-fox Nick and has so much overdubbing that the dialogue that appears in the trailer often has nothing to do with the scene being shown.
- Earlier trailers say "from the creators of Frozen and Big Hero 6" even though the creative team of writers, directors and producers for Zootopia were not the primary creators of these films and overlooked that the directors were responsible for earlier, successful Disney offerings like Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph.
- Ultimately the trailers focused on the lighter World of Funny Animals or Buddy Cop Show aspects of the film and gave no indication that it also dealt with heavier themes like profiling, prejudice, the dangers of stereotypes, or political corruption. This caught most critics off-guard and led to many surprised but highly favorable reviews.
- Open-Fly Gag: On the teaser trailer, Nick is introduced naked, as a voice-over explains the concept of the movie. When the narrator talks about animals being fully clothed, clothes appear on Nick, who then turns around to zip up.
- Photo-Booth Montage: The teaser/trailer "Selfie Is Everything" has no photo booth, but it's close enough: Nick is trying to take a series of selfies, only to have Judy repeatedly mess him up.
- Too Dumb to Live: At the end of the US Teaser Trailer, a wildebeest eats the Tranquilizer Dart that Judy shot Nick with and before she can warn the wildebeest, he face-plants.
- Trailers Always Spoil: The DVD release trailer plainly and clearly shows Nick as a ZPD officer, which doesn't happen until the end of the film.
- Tranquillizer Dart: In the US Teaser Trailer Judy darts Nick after he trips her and tries to escape. This heavily invokes Artistic License – Medicine since it's specifically identified as an "air-powered elephant tranquillizer", which would have been unquestionably fatal when used on an 80-lb fox.
- White Void Room: The teasers lack any background, putting the focus entirely on the characters.
