Disney Is About To Claim A Billion Dollar Box Office Milestone Only 1 Animated Movie Has Ever Achieved

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Disney is having a strong holiday season after a mixed year for its films. Both Avatar: Fire and Ash and Zootopia 2 are performing well in theaters. Zootopia 2, a critically praised sequel, quickly surpassed $1 billion at the box office, giving Disney a significant boost. While Fire and Ash is currently the biggest draw, and several new movies are coming out on Christmas, Zootopia 2 is still attracting large audiences, as evidenced by its recent box office success.

As reported by Variety, Zootopia 2 has already earned $1.3 billion worldwide in just over a month. Most of that success – around $993 million – comes from international audiences. This puts Zootopia 2 on course to surpass $1 billion internationally, making it only the second animated movie ever to do so. Inside Out 2, released last year, was the first.

Zootopia 2‘s Box Office Performance Explained

I always figured Zootopia 2 would be a big hit, and it was definitely one of the few movies this year with a real chance of making a billion dollars. But what’s really amazing is how it got there! It turns out pre-sales in China were huge – honestly, no one really expected that kind of success. For a while now, the Chinese box office hasn’t been as dependable for Hollywood, but Zootopia 2 has done incredibly well there, like things were before 2020. It’s already made an unbelievable $539.1 million in China alone!

It’s still uncertain if Zootopia 2 will revitalize Hollywood films in China, but Disney is very pleased with the strong turnout from audiences worldwide. While the film is performing well in the US, earning $287.5 million so far (currently sixth highest-grossing of the year), it’s slightly behind the original Zootopia‘s domestic earnings of $341.2 million. Although China didn’t save the film from failing, its box office numbers were the key to turning Zootopia 2 from a simple success into a massive hit, especially considering its $150 million production cost.

With Zootopia becoming a huge success for Disney, plans for Zootopia 3 are likely underway. While it hasn’t been officially announced, the strong box office performance of Zootopia 2 and the hint at the end of the film strongly suggest another movie is coming. Considering Disney had a challenging year with Marvel and Pixar, it wouldn’t make sense to abandon such a reliable franchise. Fans are hoping the wait for Zootopia 3 won’t be as long as the nine years between the first two films.

Currently, Zootopia 2 is the highest-grossing American film of 2025. While it’s unlikely to surpass Ne Zha 2’s impressive $2.15 billion worldwide total, it’s interesting to see if it can maintain its position as the second highest-grossing film. Avatar: Fire and Ash is a strong contender, as the previous two Avatar movies both earned over $2 billion. However, Fire and Ash had a slower start than Avatar: The Way of Water, so reaching $2 billion isn’t certain. For now, Zootopia 2 still has a chance of outperforming Fire and Ash, but we’ll need to see how Fire and Ash does in the coming weeks.

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2025-12-24 22:40