Rating: PG | Runtime: 108 minutes
Release Date: November 26th, 2025 (USA)
Studio: Walt Disney Animation Studios / Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Director(s): Byron Howard & Jared Bush
Writer(s): Jared Bush

Not every case is going to save the world.

What if Logan Roy was Benjamin Netanyahu and he stole his amusement park idea from a Palestinian, buried the latter’s entire community under snow for a winter wonderland section, and transformed its former inhabitants into exiled pariahs too fearsome to ever be accepted back? Well, you’d be the background plot to the latest hijinks-fueled investigation from Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde.

From animal metaphor commentary on American racism to animal metaphor commentary on global xenophobia, Disney has upped the ante with Zootopia 2 in ways that force me to stop giving this series the benefit of the doubt. Why? Well, it’s two-fold:

One, we no longer live in a society where racism is deemed abhorrent as a matter of principle. The Vice President literally just said, “you don’t have to apologize for being white anymore.” to his Nazi constituents. Two, Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people is such a complex, generationally propagandized topic that some people will say Gary De’Snake is actually a Zionist reclaiming his ancestral home from Palestinians despite Gary being played by an Asian (Ke Huy Quan) and the Lynxleys having insane power, wealth, and control.

“Oh, now who’s being racist?!”

Yes! Exactly! That’s the problem with this franchise! The moment you stop just letting your anthropomorphic animals be cute-looking humanoids and focus on their specific stereotypical traits as a means of skewering the often very racist stereotypical traits of who they represent is the moment you start to perpetuate what you believe you’re satirizing. You aren’t creating distance from the taboo. You’re just giving yourself cover to be racist.

So, come for the Coca-Cola bear bit, The Shining maze chase, and whatever other pop culture references are included and stay for the reductive geo-political one-state solution hinged upon a document of original ownership that is both a real-world impossibility and an example of the human demand for hierarchy that makes Apartheid possible in the first place.

“Jump scare!”

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(L-R): Nick Wilde (voiced by Jason Bateman) and Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) in Walt Disney Animation Studios’ ZOOTOPIA 2. From the Oscar®-winning team of Disney Animation chief creative officer Jared Bush and Byron Howard (directors) and Yvett Merino (producer), ZOOTOPIA 2 opens in theaters Nov. 26. © 2025 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.