Zootropolis 2 Unleashes Nearly 200 Characters, Tapping Disney’s Legacy from The Jungle Book to Robin Hood

I love when a sequel swings big and gets weird in the right ways. Disney's Zootropolis 2 (Zootopia 2 in the US) does exactly that, cramming a wild amount of life into one city and nerding out on animation craft in a way that is very, very Disney.

A city that actually feels lived in

Producer Yvett Merino says the goal was to make Zootropolis feel like an actual place animals would naturally inhabit, not just a cute backdrop. The sequel is stuffed with 178 characters across 67 species. They pulled a ton from the first movie, then built out new pockets of the city for the sequel's story. The biggest addition is Marsh Market, a bustling habitat tailored for aquatic animals — think sea lions, walruses, and plenty more flippered neighbors. Credit where it's due: the design team went wild inventing new species and looks, the character team built them, and the animators brought them to life.

Gary De'Snake: a star is coiled

The headline new species this time is reptiles, led by Ke Huy Quan as an aggressively charming pit viper named Gary De'Snake. Quan fell for the character after the team did a very specific test: they took his appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, kept his voice, and animated Gary over Quan so it looked like Colbert was interviewing the snake. Jared Bush, the sequel's co-director, showed Quan that clip on his iPhone; Quan was hooked. When he recorded Gary, he never saw full animation — just that iPhone test and a poster hanging behind him in the booth — so the rest was pure imagination.

The old duo, sharper than ever

Jason Bateman and Ginnifer Goodwin are back as the unlikely buddy-cop duo, fox Nick Wilde and bunny Judy Hopps. Bateman says having the first film in the rearview gave him a better read on the tone and where Nick fits inside this giant world. Goodwin went deeper into process this time because the animation supervisors actually sat in on voice sessions — a deliberate throwback to how the hand-drawn era worked.

"The animators are doing the actual magic. They study how each of us talks, the way our mouths move, how we touch our faces, eyebrows, hands — all of it — and thread those quirks right into the performance."

Merino calls that actor-animator connection a new swing for the studio in CG, even though the idea is old-school Disney. The voice is only half the acting; animators have to translate that into facial nuance and body movement. Letting the supervisors trade notes directly with Ke Huy Quan, Ginnifer Goodwin, and Jason Bateman helped the animation level up.

The Disney DNA is all over this thing

The team had fun channeling the studio's history in smart ways. Co-director Jared Bush points to The Jungle Book's Kaa as a touchstone. Hand-drawn legend Eric Goldberg even tested Gary in 2D pencil animation first — not for the final film, but to nail personality before translating the slinky, hypnotic snake vibe into CG. Meanwhile, co-director Byron Howard's long-standing love for Robin Hood continues to color Nick; the lineage from one iconic Disney fox to another is intentional.

Easter eggs galore (and a frying pan to the face)

There are the usual blink-and-miss-it gags everywhere, and the filmmakers say they are literally still discovering new ones because hundreds of artists hid surprises across the movie. One you can listen for: the exact frying pan Rapunzel wields in Tangled shows up here, and Nick uses it to bonk Gary — with the same Tangled sound effect.

Quick hits

• Scale check: 178 characters across 67 species in the sequel.
• New neighborhood: Marsh Market, an aquatic zone with sea lions, walruses, and more.
• New standout: reptiles join the party, led by Ke Huy Quan as Gary De'Snake, a pit viper.
• Returning stars: Jason Bateman (Nick) and Ginnifer Goodwin (Judy) are back.
• Process tweak: animation supervisors attended voice sessions, pulling from classic hand-drawn-era practices.
• Legacy nods: Gary takes cues from Jungle Book's Kaa via Eric Goldberg's 2D tests; Nick still channels Robin Hood.
• Best Easter egg to listen for: Tangled's frying pan sound effect when Nick clocks Gary.

Release status

Zootropolis 2 hits UK cinemas on November 28. In the US, it is already in theaters under the title Zootopia 2.