Zootopia 2’s Box Office Beats Every Movie in This 23-Year-Old Animated Franchise That’s Getting a New Sequel From Disney

Zootopia 2 is already one of the biggest box office successes of 2025. With just two weekends under its belt, including its Thanksgiving release, the Disney sequel is on course to beat the first movie and become one of the biggest animated movies of all time. That success has been driven by Zootopia 2‘s strong reviews (a 91% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes), very positive word-of-mouth (96% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and an A CinemaScore), and a clear gap in the market for a true family-friendly movie.

With a worldwide total of $915 million at the time of writing, it is already the fourth-highest-grossing movie of 2025, Disney’s second-biggest release of the year (behind the Lilo & Stitch remake), and has been shooting past several other animated movies on the all-time charts. It’s comfortably inside the top 100 highest-grossing movies of all time globally, unadjusted for inflation, and has defeated every movie in one of the biggest animated franchises ever, which is also (now) Disney-owned and animal-centric, Ice Age. That itself is getting a sequel from Disney with 2027’s Ice Age: Boiling Point via 20th Century Studios.

Zootopia 2 Is Destined For $1 Billion – And A Sequel

Zootopia 2 is well on course to defeat several other notable animated movies as well: Shrek 2 ($932m), Finding Nemo ($941m), and The Lion King ($979m) are very much within reach. Indeed, with just $85m needed, it’s all but guaranteed to break the $1 billion barrier at the box office. It’d be just the third movie to accomplish that this year, after Ne Zha 2 and Lilo & Stitch, and the 14th animated movie ever to hit that mark, which also includes the first Zootopia.

Assuming it does hit that $1bn milestone, then it’ll be the second consecutive Disney sequel to achieve it, as Moana 2 managed it last year – and it’s a trend that goes further back, since Frozen II also hit that mark (and if you include Pixar, then the likes of Inside Out 2, Toy Story 3 and 4, Incredibles 2, and Finding Dory all did it). While the Mouse House used to reserve sequels for the straight-to-DVD market back in the day, this highlights how much its shift in approach is working at the box office.

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The performance also essentially guarantees that Zootopia 3 will happen. Zootopia 2‘s post-credits scene definitely provides a tease for where another sequel could take things, and with both movies in the franchise having been major box office hits, it’s almost impossible to imagine Disney leaving that money on the table when a third film would almost certainly repeat it. That won’t necessarily be soon, as there’s typically several years between Disney’s animated sequels, but it’s also likely to be a quicker turnaround than the nine years it took for Zootopia 2 to arrive. Whenever it happens, though, expect it to continue the series’ strong box office form.

Zootopia 2 is now playing in theaters, while Zootopia is available on Disney+.

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