Zootopia 2 opens with Huge 560 Million Worldwide
The highly-anticipated sequel is crushing all the box office records! Let's dive in.
After almost a decade, Disney released Zootopia 2, the sequel to the 2016 mega-hit. Everyone knew that this movie was going to be huge, but eventually, it exceeded expectations in every way. Domestically, the movie opened with 158 million during its 5-day Thanksgiving weekend (98.8 million for the 3-day weekend). This is the second biggest Thanksgiving debut, behind Moana 2 (225 million in 5 days) last year. This is a vast improvement over its predecessor, which opened with 75 million, but had amazing legs and ultimately finished with 341 million domestically and 1 billion worldwide.
But the real magic is overseas, especially China. The movie grossed 271.8 million in China alone. Which is super rare these days for a Hollywood feature film. It’s already surpassed the original movie (236 million), and apparently this is the 6th biggest debut of all time in China. Combining the domestic debut, China debut and the other markets, this is a global opening of 560 million, which is simply massive. It’s the biggest global debut for an animated movie, best global debut of 2025, and the 4th biggest global debut of all time (behind Avenges: Endgame, Avengers: Infinity War and Spider-Man: No Way Home).
Kudos for Disney, directors Jared Bush & Byron Howard and everyone involved. It’s actually not unlike Inside Out 2 – a sequel to a very-beloved movie that was also released 9 years after the first, and got a huge bump at the box office. The first Inside Out grossed 858 million in 2015, while Inside Out 2 grossed nearly 1.7 billion last year, almost double than its predecessor, and it actually became the highest grossing animated movie of all time.
The big question is, can Zootopia 2 take that crown? Let’s see. The movie received great reviews from critics (92% on Rotten Tomatoes, 73 on Metacritic) and audience (“A” at CinemaScore). It seems like it will be the main family movie for the upcoming weeks. I do wonder how much it will finish domestically. Inside Out 2 was huge at the domestic box office, and ended with 653 million there (and 1 billion overseas). I think it’s too early to know if Zootopia 2 can reach these domestic numbers. But, Inside Out 2 didn’t do well in China at all, so maybe Zootopia 2 can match its box office with lower domestic numbers but higher overseas numbers.
Even if it won’t steal Inside Out 2’s record, this is still a massive win. The movie should clear the 1 billion milestone in no time. I will say that even 1.5 billion should be in the cards. The only movie that might add some competition is The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants, but I believe Zootopia 2 can survive this in no problem. This is a case where everything went right: They did a sequel to a 1-billion-movie that is well-beloved, the sequel turned out to be quite good, so people are rushing to watch it, that’s it!