‘Zootopia 2’ Eyes $950 Million Today After Record Box Office Debut

By the time you read this, Disney’s blockbuster Zootopia 2 could be eyeing $950 million in worldwide total box office by end of business today, after a record-shattering box office debut over Thanksgiving weekend. Zootopia 2 is directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard, off Bush’s own screenplay.

Zootopia 2 – By The Numbers

Including Asia Pacific in the absolute totals puts Zootopia 2 even higher through close-of-business Sunday in Hawaii, for example, with an additional half-day’s worth of box office receipts. With the first half of today’s sales, then, worldwide Zootopia 2 is hypothetically on track to possibly reach $1 billion tomorrow sometime. It seems inevitable the film will pass $1 billion on Wednesday end of day at the latest.

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Zootopia 2’s official box office gross through Sunday, adjusted for time zones, is $916 million in global receipts. That’s still enough to break a stack of records and ensure Zootopia 2 a spot high on the year-end charts, potentially even high enough to challenge for second-place or – dare I say it, China? – first place.

First place would be a high bar for Zootopia 2 to overcome, as Avatar: Fire and Ash opens soon and is expected to own the holiday box office through Christmas and the New Year. The assumption is a finish north of $2 billion for James Cameron’s sci-fi blockbuster, so we’ll see if Zootopia 2 has enough gas in its engine to stay in the race long enough and strong enough to make a play for the 2025 crown.

The momentum and strong holds (an under 45% decline) in China might indicate at least a $1.3 billion finish, and that’s conservative math. More likely is something at least north of $1.5 billion, and we’re still early enough and there’s still plenty of holiday season left for Zootopia 2 to make up the distance for the silver metal at $1.95 billion.

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Is there enough to catch up to Avatar: Fire and Ash without that film suffering some underperformance? That seems unlikely at this point, as a second-place run is already going to require some serious staying power for Zootopia 2, but enough to be in the cards.

Wicked: For Good seems to be slowing substantially, as Zootopia 2’s eye-popping numbers took a much bigger bite out of the Broadway musical adaptation’s shared kids-and-families target audience. Five Nights At Freddy’s 2 also topped expectations with a surprise showing of nearly $110 million globally this past weekend, leaving little room for the Wicked sequel to make a stronger play.

But north of $420 million so far, Wicked: For Good still has a chance at topping $500 million if the Christmas season bears gifts, and if the heavy front-loading of Zootopia 2’s and Five Nights At Freddy’s leaves domestic audiences and viewers in other key markets outside of Asia Pacific looking for another holiday film for the family to see together. There’s still several weeks left in the season, and the New Year after that, but Wicked: For Good will have to avoid another round of high weekly declines if it hopes to work some magic.

But for now, it’s Zootopia 2 pulling rabbits out of its hat, even staging a comeback on Sunday to win that day’s box office by a slim margin over the Five Nights sequel, although the latter still won the domestic weekend. Of course, Zootopia 2’s massive international appeal easily puts it in the #1 spot worldwide for the weekend.

The international receipts alone top $700 million at the moment, and are enough by themselves to make Zootopia 2 the seventh-highest grossing movie of 2025. And in total, Zootopia 2’s running total by the time multiplexes turn off their lights in Hawaii tonight should leave the film at the #2 spot. It should be only a few million shy of passing A Minecraft Movie as third-highest grossing film on 2025’s worldwide charts.

So sometime tomorrow, Zootopia 2 will be $30-40 million behind Lilo & Stitch’s $1.03 billion total, which the animated sequel will surpass this week, leaving only Ne Zha 2 with its supposed $1.9 billion in the #1 position. Before Zootopia 2 can really close that gap, however, it will almost surely see the arrival of Avatar: Fire and Ash on December 19th. At that point, it’s essentially a race to see if Zootopia 2 can gross enough to challenge Ne Zha 2 before Avatar 3 has had time to amass its own mountain of ticket sales to challenge for the year’s box office crown.

Zootopia 2 has the potential, but it did have a larger decline domestically and might slow further if it was too heavily front-loaded in other markets. While China might be expected to keep running hot, we’ll have to wait for next weekend to see how much stamina Zootopia 2 has for the final and hardest lap of the race yet.