But of Course ...

This is a total and complete non-surprise.

Zootopia directors talk sequel, TV potential

With the box office-busting Disney film set for home entertainment release on June 7, the most pressing question surrounding Zootopia — which opened on March 4 and has since grossed a whopping $993 million worldwide — is what comes next for the anthropomorphic world of bunny cops, crooked foxes, and cheetahs with short attention spans. ...

Evidently, there’s no timeline nor rush to the second lives of these properties — all of which are part of an arguable revival this decade for Disney Animation — and Howard and Moore say there’s no lack of material to revisit should Zootopia indeed take its next step into sequel, series, or beyond.

“We cut a lot out during the making of the film,” says Howard. “We introduced districts that we talked about that couldn’t fit in, other characters that we eliminated from the movie. There’s a vast potential for this world, so I’d love to see something more come from it.” (And for what it’s worth, several of those axed characters will be revealed in bonus materials on the DVD.)

One of the most promising elements of Zootopia’s potential future is that the original film has already overcome a difficult creative hurdle that now offers a prime advantage for television in particular: The tedious art of world-building. Largely unseen to audiences but ingrained in the film’s narrative are the boundless rules and complexities for the filmmakers’ devised society of anthropomorphized creatures living in a modern metropolis. “So much of the time spent on Zootopia was inventing it,” says Moore. “What does it look like? How does it work? And it would be great to go back to it and explore farther, more of it, rather than being theoretical and having to invent it [again].” ...

Z was ... stripped down to its essence ... a cop procedural with furry animals, in a furry animal universe. Cop procedurals, particularly ones as charming and inventive as Zootopia, are part of a genre on which can be done many riffs. (See Willis, Bruce at the Internet Movie Data Base if you don't believe me. Or check the later career of Karl Malden.)

But there is also the fact that Zootopia will be grossing more than a billion dollars before it's all through. And it'll sell a good many Little Silver Disks after the theatrical run, even though Little Silver Disks are steadily going out of fashion.

So yeah. Will there be a sequel? Is the Pope Catholic?