A special trailer and teaser poster for "Zootopia 2" (to be released in Japan in winter 2025), the sequel to Disney Animation Studios' animated film "Zootopia" (2016), was released on May 21st.
"Zootopia" was released in 2016 and won the 89th Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and the 74th Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Film. It was the first Disney animation film since "Frozen" to surpass $1 billion in global box office revenue. It was also a hit in Japan, grossing over 7.6 billion yen. Set in Zootopia, a big city where animals live like humans, the film follows the adventures of Judy, a rabbit police officer who is always positive and never gives up on her dreams, and Nick, a cool fox con artist who has a sarcastic side.
The sequel will be directed by Jared Bush, who co-directed and wrote the first film and is now the new chief creative officer of Disney Animation Studios, and Byron Howard. It will be released in the US on November 26th.
In the sequel, Nick, who has successfully graduated from the police academy and become a police officer, and Judy team up again to face new mysteries in Zootopia. A new character, Gary the snake, is poisonous but has a cheerful and talkative personality. He is a wanted criminal pursued by Judy and Nick, and will be an important character who will lead to new mysteries hidden in Zootopia. A new town where reptiles like Gary live will also be introduced, and their dark past in Zootopia will be the key to the story.
The released video starts with Zootopia's best techno group, LEMEEENS, made up of lemmings, playing their original song "ZUTU" on an electronic piano. Then Judy and Nick appear, and a new character, Gary the snake, appears, dragging the two of them away and running away somewhere. It seems that Gary is being chased by the police, and the three are shown running around various parts of Zootopia. The locations include swamps, vast deserts, cliffs, and frigid areas with blowing snow, all of which did not appear in the previous film, making the video feel like an adventure on a larger scale.
Furthermore, characters from the previous film are shown one after another, and at the end, a mysterious black shadow wearing a cloak appears in front of Judy, Nick, and Gary... The previous film was a hot topic for its unexpected plot twists, and the footage is raising expectations for a big surprise in the sequel.
The teaser visual released at the same time shows Judy and Nick with a snake named Gary wrapped around them, with Gary's body shaped like the number "2."
