If the film's successful enough, there will be a sequel.
Last month, I joined a group of other film journalists for a special preview of Zootopia in Los Angeles, and it was while sitting down two-on-one with the filmmakers behind the movie that I learned their thoughts on possibly seeing future stories set within the world of the film. Acknowledging that Walt Disney Animation has recently started to change its perspectives on sequels, I asked if Zootopia 2 was something that they’re thinking about even before the first movie is released. Rich Moore responded in the affirmative, explaining:
"I think it is, because of the worlds being so vast that it just naturally kind of lends itself to wanting to know more about it. It’s like, because it is such a big place, well, what’s going on there? I like that kind of stuff. I like a big cast of characters and a world that lets your imagination kind of… I grew up on Star Wars and it’s like, what’s behind that, or what if I went down there? What was going on over in that part of the Death Star? I think that’s kind of our approach to building these worlds now, or just has a sense of there’s more around the corner".
While Rich Moore and Byron Howard may be thinking about all the potential stories that could be told in a future Zootopia movie, there’s no guarantee that we’ll actually get to see any of them on the big screen. Still, Moore is certainly holding out hope, and told me:
"If people love it, it would be a great thing, and they’re always talking about at the company of creating you know, worlds that people want to revisit. So, that’s what we do."
Source:
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Zootopia ... 97547.html
Q: With such a big world and so many characters, does this story feel self-contained, or are audience going to immediately want to see more, either in future films or even in shorts?
Rich Moore: It doesn’t end totally open-ended, but the world is so well-designed and so big. It’s the stuff of imagination, and you want to know what’s going on over there, or on that side of town. It could easily support more stories.
Byron Howard: And that would be great. As we’re creating a new world, it becomes a big playground for ourselves and for our co-workers. I would love to see it expand, just like I’d love to see Wreck-It Ralph expand. It’s nice to have that option to hear more about that place and these characters.
Source:
http://collider.com/zootopia-rich-moore ... ew-disney/
Q: Could there be a sequel?
Byron Howard: Hopefully, there'll be a sequel. I guess, if it does well...
Rich Moore: If everyone goes and sees it...
Clark Spencer: We love making these movies. We fall in love with these characters and we fall in love with these worlds and there's only so much we can do in a 90-minute story so you always secretly hope to get that opportunity to return. This is one of the most clever worlds I've ever seen and there's so much to be explored. So, I think if that opportunity came we'd all jump on.
Source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiVy_VstCC0
Clark Spencer wrote:One of the hardest things in creating an animated film, is you spend five years creating these characters and creating this world, and the film goes out and gets released in the movie theaters, and then you don't get to play with them anymore. It's like these characters and these worlds go away. So, we always secretly hope that the world will fall in love with the film and those characters in a way that we get to revisit it.
I think Zootopia is this amazing city and there's so many more stories to be told. There're even areas that we didn't get to put in this film. We'd always talk about 'wouldn't it be fun to have a nocturnal district for all the animals that are only out at night that's under the ground? Is there an outback island that's filled with animals from the Australia world?' Really, so many things are not in the film because we have 90 to 95 minutes to tell a story and we can only do certain amounts. So, there's so much more to explore should we be so fortunate to be able to get to do that. We would love, love to do that.
Source:
http://www.ecartelera.com/noticias/2888 ... r-secuela/
Q: If there's a sequel to Zootopia, what would you want to add and make sure would be done in this film?
Kira Lehtomaki: I think I would want to explore some of these other worlds. Byron Howard, he is the director and he's one of the guys that came up with the initial idea for this whole movie, and he had always talked about that 'maybe all the mammals live in this area of Zootopia but maybe there's other areas like for bird or reptiles'. I don't know what kind of storylines he has in mind but I'd love to either explore some of the other areas in Zootopia that we didn't get to see quite as much in this movie or maybe find out where all those other animals live.
Source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0yQOs2HbUI
Byron Howard wrote:It's very hard to fit a world like that into a 90-minute movie. You see the Rainforest District, and Sahara Square, and Tundra Town, and Little Rodentia in the movie but there were districts we couldn't even fit in. There was Outback Island which was an Australian district that we had to cut. We'd always talk about having a nocturnal district under the city, and caves with bats, catacombs, which would be awesome. The world is so enormous. We hope it supports many stories in the future because you could just go a million places. Even the characters themselves are so fun and compelling that you could just tell a thousand stories.
Source:
http://www.comingsoon.net/movies/traile ... topia-cast
Q: Do you feel like there are more stories that you can tell in this? Are we going to get a chance to see some of these realized, especially since how well Zootopia is doing in early reviews and things like that?
Clark Spencer: We always hope that's where we can go. We never embark on a film thinking 'how can this be something with many stories'. We always focus on the main story 'cause we have to ultimately create the best story possible and hope the world falls in love with the characters and the world. But secretly... It's at this moment in time where we all have to let go of this, right? It's going to go out in the world. The world gets to see it. But these characters and environments we've spent years building and creating, end. And it's always hard. It's really an emotional thing to say goodbye to this cast and say goodbye to our team, because we work with 800 people, and then suddenly we're just three people trying to think of what's that next idea. So, it is always that kind of bittersweet moment. But you do secretly kind of hope you can revisit those characters and the world because we've had so much fun building that and it's been such a wonderful experience for all of us.
Byron Howard: So, the movie Clark and I worked on about seven years ago, Bolt, is a closed-ended story. The dog and the girl are happy on the farm together. It's buttoned up nice and clean and you can walk away. That story exists in that little envelope. This was built with so much potential. There's so much potential of where you could go with the world. Even the things we couldn't include that are so much fun and so compelling that when you mention them to people, people go 'Oh my God, that would be great!' Hopefully... We'll see how it does when it goes out in the world but I would love to come back to this world sometime.
Source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuLbuR1afNQ
Q: From here what do you think is the next step for Zootopia?
Byron Howard: The world is huge so if the movie does well, and I hope it does, I would love to come back to the world because it is just vast. If we do another movie, I’d stay within the city to show the audience more of what we couldn’t show this time.
Source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9Yn7wTsMjs
Q: What do you think could happen in a Zootopia sequel?
Rich Moore: I think that if there was another crime, that would be pretty good. Exploring another genre of detective story, would be nice. That would be good. More sloth. I would do that.
Source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwTvoCo3FpM
Q: Will there be a sequel? What's next for Zootopia?
Byron Howard: I think we would love to go into further depth...
Rich Moore: I would love that. That's great.
Byron Howard: It's a big world and we love the characters. Anytime you get a character that people relate to... It think that would be fun.
Rich Moore: We were touring recently. We were promoting the movie in Europe and in Mexico and around the United States. And sometimes Byron and I would say 'Hey, what about if there's another story and we did this, this, this?' We were just throwing around ideas. When characters, and a world, and potential story material is that fertile, I think it's just screaming for [a sequel].
Source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCDzwOHjkRI