Zootopia, with its lovable bunny-cop and fox-criminal main characters, was a childhood staple for many, including me. The original came out in 2016, and the long-awaited sequel is finally coming out later this year (specifically November 26th, 2025).

For those who don’t remember Zootopia, here’s a quick recap (and for those who have never watched Zootopia, beware of spoilers in this paragraph!) Judy Hopps, the first rabbit police officer, is determined to prove herself to her fiercer colleagues. She ends up working to solve a mysterious case about the disappearance of various predators in the city. When she discovers Nick Wilde, a con artist fox, is the last known witness of the most recent victim, she forces him to join her in solving the mystery. Through a few brushes with danger, they learn that the predators are all going feral, and have been put in captivity by the mayor, Leodore Lionheart. This sparks fear and prejudice against predators throughout Zootopia, and, feeling responsible for this, Judy quits her job and moves back to her hometown. She returns only after finding out that the case isn’t as solved as she thought it was–a new development in the form of a flower that forcefully turns predators feral has appeared, and Judy realizes that someone is deliberately feeding these flowers to predators. She and Nick reunite one more time to take down the real culprit: the new mayor Dawn Bellwether.

This new movie will feature both Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde again as they unravel a mystery connected to one of Zootopia’s founding families. A new character is also introduced, a reptile named Gary De’Snake (Laughing Place). Whether he is a friend or foe remains to be seen. While he’s framed to be a villain, some theories suggest he’s a red herring, and the true villain is yet to be discovered.

Zootopia 2 also picks up directly after the events of Zootopia, and follows Judy and Nick as they navigate their new relationship as partners in the police department. It expands into new territories, introduces new systems, and answers questions from the first movie, especially regarding the whereabouts of other animal types. Zootopia seems to be composed solely of mammals, without a reptile or sea creature in sight) (Laughing Place).

Grace Yang (10) said she “really liked the animation [of Zootopia]…it’s a movie you won’t get bored of”. Her sister, Joyce Yang (10), also mentioned that she “really liked the music”. For them, as well as many other long time fans of the movie, the animation quality and music are characteristics that they hope will stay the same, or even improve, through the sequel.

In just over a month, the long-awaited Zootopia 2 will be released. For fans of the original movie, the question isn’t if they’ll watch it–it’s whether they’ll watch it in theaters or wait until streamimg.