Zootopia

[DisneyFan09]

Well, from the various interviews they gave for Tangled and Bolt I get the sense the Byron has a deeper, more 'classical' understanding of story structure and character development than Greno. Greno seems to have a more contemporary, Hollywood-ish approach to story. Also, I know that Byron loves Broadway musicals and that his favorite Disney film is The Little Mermaid. It's little stuff like that. Nothing really concrete.

I doesn't surprise me at all. Greno seems like that kind of guy. He seems like a more easy-going, carefree guy in interviews, so therefore not surprised by his taste.

[Prince Kido]

I can confirm that Byron Howard is a musician : he plays guitar and piano.
And I would add that he has seen more than 150 musicals on stage in London and Broadway.
He loves musicals, and sure he loves The Little Mermaid, but one of his fav' Disney movies is Robin Hood though Zootopia won't look like this movie.
He is an animal lover and he adores rabbits.

[Disney's Divinity]

I can confirm that Byron Howard is a musician : he plays guitar and piano.
And I would add that he has seen more than 150 musicals on stage in London and Broadway.
He loves musicals, and sure he loves The Little Mermaid

That's all nice and good, but Tangled is still a much weaker musical than it could've been because of the directors, imo.

[disneyprincess11]

What's interesting about Zootopia is that:

This was the old synopsis:

Byron Howard (Tangled) is directing a comedy adventure film with a working title Zootopia. The film, written by Jared Bush, is scheduled for 2016. It tells a story about a fast-talking fox, named Nick Wilde, who lives in an animal city of Zootopia, divided in neighbourhoods like Tundratown, Sahara Square, Little Rodenta, and Burrowborough. Wilde “goes on the run when he’s framed for a crime he didn’t commit. Zootopia’s top cop, a self-righteous rabbit, named Lt. Judy Hops, is hot on his tail, but when both become targets of a conspiracy, they’re forced to team up and discover even natural enemies can become best friends”.

This is the new synopsis:

The modern mammal metropolis of Zootopia is a city like no other. Comprised of habitat neighborhoods like ritzy Sahara Square and frigid Tundratown, it’s a melting pot where animals from every environment live together—a place where no matter what you are, from the biggest elephant to the smallest shrew, you can be anything. But when optimistic Officer Judy Hopps arrives, she discovers that being the first bunny on a police force of big, tough animals isn’t so easy. Determined to prove herself, she jumps at the opportunity to crack a case, even if it means partnering with a fast-talking, scam-artist fox, Nick Wilde, to solve the mystery. Walt Disney Animation Studios’ “Zootopia,” a comedy-adventure directed by Byron Howard (“Tangled,” “Bolt”) and Rich Moore (“Wreck-It Ralph,” “The Simpsons”) and co-directed by Jared Bush (“Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero”), opens in theaters on March 4, 2016.

It seems like they may have done retooling and now the female character is the lead, instead of the male. If this is the case, are they doing this because of Frozen’s success?

[jazzflower92]

I wonder what made them decide to make Judy Hopps the main character. Maybe its because they think her story would be something more unique than if Nicke Wilde was the main character.

Not to mention the fact that many Disney fans would flip for a non-princess main female character. I think also another reason why they are making Judy Hopps as the main character is probably because it ties back to when Chicken Little was originally going to be female but Eisner changed it because he believed boys would not relate to a girl protagonist. But now that Frozen has shown that boys don't care about a female being the main character they are more confident that a female lead can attract a wide audience.

It also averts a trend in the Renaissance that most of the non-princess movies would have male leads. But on the other hand it would be funny if someone from the Disney Princess line made Judy Hopps an honorary princess.

[Victurtle]

I wonder how Jared Bush came into the co-directing credit. My impression after the success of Tangled was that both Byron and Nathan received some sort of 'all-star' director status and thus given the green light to pursue directing their own films individually, which ended up being Zootopia and Giants.

Purely speculation based on no evidence whatsoever: perhaps the gig turned out too heavy a job for Byron to go solo, and Rich came in for support. But more so Jared Bush proved himself worthy in the process and was upgraded to co-director, and that we may see more of him in the director's position. Or maybe Rich and Jared saw huge potential in Byrons work and offered suggestions and it went from there.

Whatever the case may be it certainly seems Disney is a lot more supportive and collaborative which is encouraging, given Lasetter's past tendacy to cause directors to rage quit and jump ship to competitors.

[estefan]

Well, director teams tend to be very common at Disney. And, of the Lasseter era, Stephen J. Anderson and Rich Moore are the only directors to work solo in that department.

This is the third straight Disney animated movie where it was originally a solo directing gig and then John Lasseter decided to give them a partner because they thought they'd work well together. Teaming Chris Buck with Jennifer Lee was particularly inspired, considering her only animation credit before was co-writing Wreck-It Ralph. One thing that can always be said about Disney is they know how to team directors with the right people. How different history would have been, if Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale weren't teamed up together on Cranium Command. Or if the higher-ups at Disney hadn't thought The Great Mouse Detective would be a better fit for John Musker than The Black Cauldron.

[Prince Kido]

If Judy sounds to be the main character, it's only for Story purposes and not for any other speculation related to Frozen, or Princesses or whatever...
Jared Bush is on the movie since the beginning with Byron Howard.
Rich Moore came much later to help on story.

[Sotiris]

Zootopia has been renamed to Zootropolis for its UK release. A completely unnecessary change, if you ask me. I guess British people find puns with the word "metropolis" funnier than ones with the word "utopia"?

A spokesman for Disney explained: “In the UK we decided to change the US title (Zootopia) to Zootropolis to merely allow the film to have a unique title that works for UK audiences.” Disney also revealed that the animated feature will receive its UK theatrical release on March 25, 2016. It is set for US release on March 4, 2016.

Source: http://www.screendaily.com/news/disneys ... 29.article

[Prince Kido]

I knew about that a while ago and there are other reasons why the title had to change in UK (and possibly other european countries...).
Well, Zootopia sounds better of course, but it won't be as bad as the many translations for Big Hero 6 we had (especially in my country where it was renamed "Les Nouveaux Héros" - "the New Heroes" litterally).

[DisneyFan09]

Zootopia has been renamed to Zootropolis for its UK release. A completely unnecessary change, if you ask me. I guess British people find puns with the word "metropolis" funnier than ones with the word "utopia"?

Yeah, I don't see it either. I don't understand what's so unappealing with Utopia for Brits. But it's not the worst change either, though.

[Disney's Divinity]

The change doesn't bother me (not like TSQ -> Frozen, Rapunzel -> Tangled, or TB&TB -> Brave), although it seems unnecessary?

[disneyprincess11]

Apparently, that little fox on the WDAS gate is a Fennec named Gazelle who is a pop star

http://nick---wilde.tumblr.com/post/114 ... drawing-to

[Prince Kido]

This Tumblr post is not right.
The character on the Disney Animation gate is NOT Gazelle the pop star but is sure a fennec.

[unprincess]

yeah, why would they name a fennec after a compleetly different animal?

[Sotiris]

[Ben] Lane also spent more than a year as a story artist on the Disney animated feature “Zootopia,” which hits theaters about a year from now. A fast-talking fox is framed for a crime, and a top-cop rabbit is on his tail. The two eventually must work as an odd-couple team to solve the case. “It’s all set in an animal world, and the architecture reflects what animals would design and create,” Lane said. “It’s an interesting landscape.” The script was still very fluid when he left.

Source: http://www.omaha.com/go/omaha-animator- ... 1cb49.html

[Disney's Divinity]

So I'm guessing they've abandoned any pretense about a difference between a Disney film and a Pixar film at this point? Wasn't there some explanation they gave once, I can't remember the exact words, about how Disney films were "I wish" and Pixar films were about world-building, etc.

[jazzflower92]

So I'm guessing they've abandoned any pretense about a difference between a Disney film and a Pixar film at this point? Wasn't there some explanation they gave once, I can't remember the exact words, about how Disney films were "I wish" and Pixar films were about world-building, etc.

People keep saying that Disney should expand their horizons.

[Sotiris]

Wasn't there some explanation they gave once, I can't remember the exact words, about how Disney films were "I wish" and Pixar films were about world-building, etc.

It was Glen Keane who first said that while doing press for Tangled, and later on other Disney employees repeated it.

"If you reduced Pixar to a phrase it would be: "Wouldn't it be cool if?" If you reduced the Disney films it would be: "Once upon a time… ".

Source: http://www.cloneweb.net/interview/renco ... len-keane/


And yes, you're right. There's no real difference between Pixar and Disney post-Lasseter. Disney has done "woudn't it be cool if" stories like Meet the Robinsons, Bolt, Wreck-it Ralph, Zootopia and Pixar has done "once upon a time" stories like Brave. The only difference is that Disney does musicals and Pixar doesn't but even that is about to change now that Pixar's working on their first musical. I would even argue that the similarities run deeper than subject matter. The storytelling approach is very similar between the two which is to be expected since both studios need to constraint themselves to Lasseter's sense of storytelling. Employees get transferred from one studio to another with no problem and even Pixar's Brain Trust sits in on meetings and gives notes on WDAS films.

[Sotiris]

Zootopia will be called Zoomania in Germany.