With record-breaking box office and an unprecedented level of acclaim (by aggregate standards), Disney’s new animated feature, Zootopia, is sure to generate sequel talk this week. And that’s more exciting than it might seem to anyone skeptical about sequels in general. Not only is Zootopia 2 a good idea, as is Zootopia 3 and 4 and so on, but it’s an uncommon idea for its studio.
Unlike Pixar, where almost every catalog title is receiving a follow-up on the big screen now, Walt Disney Animation Studios has never been much of a franchise factory on the theatrical level. Many classics have received sequels, but they’ve been direct-to-video efforts. The Rescuers Down Under and Fantasia 2000 are the only examples put out by the studio in cinemas, neither to great success.
There’s been talk of Disney revisiting the worlds of Wreck-It Ralph, Big Hero 6 and, obviously, Frozen, but little has come of those interests so far. The problem is that new stories for those properties aren’t easily generated. Zootopia, on the other hand, has franchise potential because its world is so densely constructed that there are as many narratives to be set there as in any fictional universe.
Here are just a handful of ways the studio could go with the next and further installments of a Zootopia film series:
Other Cases
Naturally, the simplest and likely most popular way to go with Zootopia 2 is a direct sequel focused on the same characters. And unlike many other Disney animated features, it wouldn’t be an issue to follow the same protagonist because Zootopia isn’t just the story of Judy Hopps or even of her and Nick Wilde together as a duo. Well, it is, but the plot is more centered on the case of the missing mammals they’re out to solve.
So, the next movie can just be about another police case or mystery in need of cracking. If Zootopia is basically Police Academy for kids (not that kids didn’t watch Police Academy), then next we’d just get Zootopia 2: Nick’s First Assignment, and maybe Bobcat Goldthwait could even voice the villain, a punk who is also an actual bobcat. And then of course Zootopia 3 has him joining the force. Eventually they all go to Moscow, which is a city filled with communist cows. See how easily this world just writes itself?
Other Characters
In addition to the literal bobcat Bobcat Goldthwait, there are so many great characters in need of discovery in Zootopia. And not all have to be puns or references to other movie characters, Disney’s own, a la the brilliant “Duke Weaselton” idea, or otherwise. Sure, fans are going to want more of Judy and Nick and probably Flash, but there’s no reason any of them has to be the protagonist of the next story. They can move to the sidelines.
As stated above, Zootopia is about a place more than any specific characters who live there. So far what we’ve seen indicates it’s a world that mostly works in service to Judy’s story, yes, but it also can be the other way around. The concept of the movie actually began with the world first and wasn’t initially focused on Judy anyway. The idea of a bunny and fox was there, but that’s it. Now how about an elephant and a mouse? Okay, that’s been done by Disney before, but you get the idea.
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