Zootopia 2 Directors Explore Expanded Animal World and Universal Themes

When a beloved and dynamic duo in a film captures the hearts of audiences, one of the most exciting things for fans is seeing them reunite for another adventure. That’s exactly what fans of the hit animated film "Zootopia" can look forward to with "Zootopia 2." The sequel features Judy Hopps, an ambitious bunny police officer, and her unlikely fox sidekick, Nick Wilde, as they return to solve a new mystery involving a mysterious snake named Gary, voiced by Ke Huy Quan. Their investigation takes them to uncharted parts of Zootopia in search of a long-buried secret.

Directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard, who also worked on the original film, "Zootopia 2" will be shown at the Palm Springs International Film Festival for Family Day on Sunday, January 11. The event will include various activities such as face painting, temporary tattoos, games, prizes, local food trucks, and more at the Cathedral City Community Amphitheater. Additionally, "Arco" and "KPOP Demon Hunters" will also be screened at the Mary Pickford Theatre for free.

Bush and Howard shared their insights with The Desert Sun about expanding the world of Zootopia, the importance of storytelling, and whether there might be more adventures featuring Judy and Nick in the future.

The first "Zootopia" was a massive success, and now the sequel is generating awards buzz. How do you feel about this?

JB:
It’s incredible. I would say, more than anything in the world, I just need Byron to be proud of me. So the accolades are wonderful, but if Byron’s not mad at me, it’s a job well done.

Creating a film like this takes about five years, and 85% of that time is spent inside our building with ourselves. We don’t know how it will be received. Many people work hard, putting their hearts and passion into this, wanting to tell a story that matters. When it goes out to the world, it draws people to theaters. It’s incredibly gratifying.

BH:
We work so intensely on them for so many years, especially the last couple of months trying to get it done. But when it goes out into the world, you have no control over anything that happens. It’s like you made this thing with your filmmaking friends and you’re like, ‘How’d it go? I hope it’s OK with everybody.’ … The fact that globally it’s done so well is wonderful because we have a very international crew, and I think the city itself, Zootopia, is meant to be this big melting pot. The fact that it has such a wide appeal is huge for us. And the fact that so many people actually took the trouble to go out to theaters to see it has been a really remarkable, kind of an emotional thing for us.

This film gives us an even more expansive look at Zootopia. As you decided to make another film, was there already a collective idea of where you wanted to take the story?

BH:
Even on the first one, Jared and I started talking about films that we loved. We loved noir films, comedies, and the world of animals. … Animals are just a fascinating part of our world, and then that research led us into the thematics of that first film as well as this one. The more we kind of live in the research, it sort of lends itself to these stories. Jared has incredible stamina. After we finished "Encanto" together, everyone was very tired, but his brain was ticking already. He did this sketch of "Zootopia 2" and the 2 was a snake just like on the poster. … This idea of the potential of reptiles is something we didn’t get to talk about in the first film, and it was really stepping in in a big way through this character of Gary.

JB:
We found in the first film, no matter where you put a camera, it was exciting, and you can imagine stories and characters and animals around every corner, many of which you hadn’t seen before. I think a really fun part of this was tying those locations to our thematics. We really wanted to tell a story about our differences and how easy it can be to other someone else or to ultimately just start to worry that those differences are insurmountable. So we intentionally wanted to put Nick and Judy into places that were very different for them, where they would be outsiders, where the animals they came into contact would be unusual. Marsh Market is a great example of that. We wanted them to be surrounded by these gross walruses and sea lions and animals that were going in and out of the water effortlessly in ways that they would never be able to do. … The Alps area, that came in very late, and one of the reasons for that was we established in the first film that Nick was afraid of heights, Judy less so, so we wanted to use that vertical environment to set their differences apart. That was something that became our true north throughout. No matter where we went, we always made sure that we were constantly using differences as our backdrop of every location.

It seems like, not only wanting to make a great film, equally important is sending a strong message. Would you say that’s true?

JB:
It’s critical. Something that I learned from Byron when I first got to Disney Animation, he said to me, "It’s so rare to ever be lucky enough to make a film." At Disney Animation, we’re very lucky that those films tend to go around the world. So Byron said to me, as a result of that, "It has to matter. If you have this opportunity to say something, make it mean something." We wanted to say something through joy, but also making sure we were leaving our audiences with something to think about, with something to look at within themselves because in the world of Zootopia, we really are just holding up a mirror to human nature.

BH:
Jared’s good at many things; I’m proud of him. His writing is great because it’s a tough balance. It’s pushed humor, a lot of really broad stuff, great action stuff, great comedy, it’s very smart and kind of rides the line between adult sensibilities and something that’s easy for kids and families to process. There’s so many amazing thematics and relatable thematics, not stuff that’s even messagey, I would say. I remember on the first film, one of the reasons it resonated in China was because a lot of young Chinese people saw themselves in Judy, someone who is leaving the more rural areas of the country to move toward these big metropolises, the idea of making a better life and doing something great and being supportive of your family. In this one, Gary has a line … "My family would never put all that on my shoulders." These key human ideas, but that was a very resonant idea over there. Around the world, it’s interesting to see what these different audiences lock in on.

There are so many great references to other movies in this one, like "The Shining," "The Silence of the Lambs," and "Ratatouille." Tell me about including those.

JB:
It’s incredibly intentional. I think it’s very rare that you’re able to do that. For other films that we’ve worked on for Disney Animation, it wouldn’t really make sense to do it. There’s something about this world of modern animals where these homages to films and filmmakers that we love feel really at home, and some of them go by in a blink. In the first film, we had this scene where we really did "The Godfather" word for word for one part but with this tiny little Arctic shrew. We’re doing homages to sophisticated movies, so it was really fun in our early screening when you’d watch it, and all the adults in the room would be cackling and the kids would be like, "I’m also laughing, but I don’t know why, but I think I’m supposed to laugh here," that’s amazing.

BH:
With "The Shining," one of our amazing animators is such a huge "Shining" fan. When he heard that this was a possibility, he wasn’t scheduled to do the scene, but he came in wearing a "Shining" shirt and he went into the supervisor’s office and he shut the door behind them and he said, "I have to do this shot from ‘The Shining.’" He did the shot with the crazy Jack Nicholson weird look. Everyone just said, "OK, take it." He went away for a week and he came back with that and we had zero notes.

I have to ask, will we be getting a third film?

BH:
We were just talking about one, I won’t say much about it, but literally like a moment ago. Jared was talking to me about something that could be a really fun nod for the next film. It keeps going. It’s interesting because you get so exhausted, or at least I do, but then once the film is out for a while, you start to get invigorated again and you start to see what everyone else has been producing. Even this season, which is so much about watching a lot of films and seeing great stuff that’s come out, it sort of charges your batteries back up.

If you go

What:
"Zootopia 2" screening at the Palm Springs International Film Festival

When/where:

10 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 11 at Mary Pickford Theatre (36-850 Pickfair St., Cathedral City)

Cost:

Free

More info:

psfilmfest.org/film-festival-2026/film-finder/zootopia-2