Creating an animated film is a painstaking journey. From development to design and implementation, it takes years of work to get to the big premiere. And Walt Disney Animation Studios gives viewers a glimpse into that whole process in their What We Do section, which now includes behind the scenes looks at Zootopia 2.
Animation Process
On the studios’ website, under the What We Do section, the Filmmaking Process page is now full of tidbits about Zootopia 2. Although the film is under 100 minutes, the animation studio outlines just how much work goes into these visually complex movies, from how many frames are needed per second of film (24) to how many total frames were needed for the entire movie (144,355).
The page explores all the crucial steps viewers might not think about while they’re catching up on the hijinks of Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde. For example, how the artists and creative team have access to over 65,000,000 assets in the Walt Disney Animation Research Library at their disposal while they’re creating these bright new worlds.
The special feature also digs into the story and character development process. You can explore how these fully fleshed out characters go from preliminary sketches to what we see on the big screen.
You even get a sense for how much effort goes into rendering them into the iconic 3D style that Zootopia has. It requires even more total frames for the whole film to achieve depth with Stereo 3D, which needs images for both the left and right eye, for a grand total of 288,710 frames rendered.
Be sure to check it out for yourself here!
Zootopia 2 Box Office
Now entering its third week in theaters, the popular sequel has reached $915.8 million worldwide, including $695.3 million in the international box office, as reported by Deadline:
With this weekend’s numbers, Zootopia 2 has become the No. 3 Hollywood release of 2025 worldwide and No. 1 internationally. In China, Z2, at $430.4M, is also now the No. 2 studio movie ever in the market, behind only Avengers: Endgame.
Zootopia 2 has been a juggernaut since its release on November 26. First, it became the second biggest Thanksgiving opening for a film ever. It also became the first Hollywood movie to ever pass the $100 million mark in a single day in China.
Once its opening weekend numbers were tallied, Zootopia 2 was found to have had the biggest global opening for an animated film ever and was also the sixth-highest-grossing movie of the year worldwide.
Meanwhile, the parks have a load of offerings available for the new movie, like a limited-time macaron, a limited-time sipper, a ride overlay, and a new puppet show at Shanghai Disneyland, limited-time meet and greets, and last but not least, the new show at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Zootopia: Better Zoogether.
In Zootopia 2, Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde go undercover to solve the case of the mysterious reptile who arrives in Zootopia and turns the mammal metropolis upside down. Their growing partnership will be tested like never before. Jared Bush and Byron Howard are directors, and Yvette Merino produced the film.
The CCO of Walt Disney Animation also recently talked about the success of the film.
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