Zootopia 2 Filmmakers Talk Pushing New Boundaries With Animation to Create the Sequel

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That addition happens to be Zootopia’s newest resident, Gary De’Snake, who is played by the always fantastic Ke Huy Quan. Gary opens up the world in a number of ways, as he won’t be the only reptile introduced in the film, and that was one of the most pressing challenges for the team at the start of the project.

Something New

“When Jerry came up with this idea for [Gary], it’s a big challenge to throw toward the animators, but they revel in that, and you’ll talk to some of them today, but kind of the harder, the better, that is where they’re in their happy place… But every week, they would surprise us with amazing, glorious snake [animations]… Also, I think at every step of the way, anytime we do a new movie, any department – could be animation, it could be environments, anybody they do – revel in the challenges of something new that they’ve never done before, or something that feels very difficult, something that in the past that has been an obstacle that’s nearly insurmountable,” Howard said.

“So it kind of energizes everybody. It’s not the same old thing. It is trying to figure out something new. And I think there’s no better time than when you go, ‘This is impossible, right?’ And the teams go, ‘We’ll be back in a week, bring you something that’s honestly just spectacular.’ So I think Gary is a great example that Adam Green, who is sort of leading the animation, put up. You guys may have seen he did a test of Ke; Ke went on the Colbert Show, and he animated Ke’s interview on The Colbert Show as Gary on that stage before we even cast Ke, and immediately all that personality came out. But that’s, you know, there’s so much work to figure that out, but they found a way to make him like the most adorable, adorable character in the movie,” Howard said.

A Fun Challenge

It’s easy to forget that while Zootopia featured a bevy of different animals, most of them had one major element in common. That’s why introducing reptiles into the mix for the sequel was always going to be a challenge, but from the footage shown of the film so far, the team was more than up for it.

“Really, yeah, I would say animating Gary specifically, just because Gary, you know, all the others from Zootopia, most of them have legs and arms. And how do you make a snake? Snake Slither. They don’t walk. But how do you make a snake gesture with no arms? But it was a fun challenge. It was exciting because you have to figure it out. And obviously we looked at the past Disney films that had animated snakes, and we took stuff from those and kind of took the best parts and created a new character and really tried to bless it,” Sellers said.

Gary is obviously in the spotlight throughout the film, but he’s far from the only reptile fans will meet on their journey. Judy and Nick will meet a number of interesting reptilian characters along the way, and they will even end up in a reptile speakeasy at some point down the line. This looks to open up an already expansive world even further, and coupled with the return of everyone’s favorite Zootopia originals, this has the ingredients to become another major Disney hit.

Zootopia 2 lands in theaters on November 26th.