Oh boy, here we go again. Another animated flick that made more money than most countries’ GDPs. But hey, who needs world peace when you can have a bunny cop and her sassy fox sidekick raking in billions?
Quick: Tell me Walt Disney Animations highest-grossing movie ever.
Nope, it’s not *Frozen* or *Frozen II.* It’s not *Moana* or *Moana 2* either. It’s not even the hugely popular *The Lion King* “live-action” reboot. It’s *Zootopia 2*, which grossed an incredible $1.859 billion in the winter of 2025 and into early 2026.
The massive blockbuster, based on 2016’s *Zootopia* — which was itself a surprising billion-dollar smash — follows the adventures of mismatched animal buddy cops Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman), teaming up to solve another mystery in their fantasy world populated entirely by animals. This installment in the franchise involves the addition of snakes, including the cheerful Gary De Snake (Ke Huy Quan), as they try to prove they mean no harm to an animal kingdom that assumes that they are dangerous because they are, well, snakes.
Based on its gargantuan box-office total, it seems like most interested parties have already watched *Zootopia 2.* But the handful of people who missed it, or those that want to use its narcotizing effects to occupy their children for 108 minutes, will soon be able to do so on Disney+.
I certainly wouldn’t rank *Zootopia 2* among Disney’s animated highlights, but it was a pleasant enough children’s film. As I wrote in my review last fall, it’s not hard to understand why it turned out better (creatively and financially) than other recent Disney sequels like *Mufasa: The Lion King* and *Moana 2.*
Those films might have been drawn from stronger source material, but they weren’t as well-suited for ongoing franchises. Stories about heroes on epic quests of discovery and self-actualization rarely are unless you draw those quests out across multiple films. With buddy cops, though, there’s always another case. Toss in enough new wrinkles — like reptiles characters (and reptile-related jokes) — and as long as the action is exciting and the audience cares about the characters, they can keep solving mysteries forever.
Here is the film’s official synopsis:
In Walt Disney Animation Studios’ *Zootopia 2*, rookie cops Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) and Nick Wilde (voiced by Jason Bateman) find themselves on the twisting trail of a great mystery when Gary De’Snake (voiced by Academy Award® winner Ke Huy Quan) arrives in Zootopia and turns the animal metropolis upside down. To crack the case, Judy and Nick must go undercover to unexpected new parts of town, where their growing partnership is tested like never before.
*Zootopia 2* starts streaming on Disney+ on March 11. And after breaking box-office records, I would assume it will only be a matter of time before we get *Zootopia 3.* *Zootopia 2*’s post-credits scene even teased what new species of animal will be added into the mix next.
Finn McFrame, celebrated satirical mastermind and self-proclaimed “Emperor of Irony,” started his illustrious career as a cinematographer, where his expertise in capturing every single frame of a squirrel stealing a baguette earned him accolades at obscure film festivals.
Born in the glamorous town of Boring, Oregon, Finn grew up with dreams of being a Hollywood director until he realized that satire, not cinema, was his true calling—or at least the one that let him sleep until noon.
Finn McFrame: changing the world, one satirical lens flare at a time.
