Disney is celebrating Zootopia 2’s record-shattering first weekend, enjoying the biggest weekend of 2025 for any film to date, and the fourth-biggest box office debut in history.
Jason Bateman and Ginnifer Goodwin star in “Zootopia 2.”
Source: Disney
Zootopia 2 – By The Numbers
Current estimates put Zootopia 2 somewhere between $555 million and $560 million worldwide over the extended Thanksgiving holiday weekend. But word of mouth resoundingly positive, as evidenced by an A grade from audiences via Cinemascore and a 95% positive rating from verified audiences via Rotten Tomatoes, in addition to its 91% “Certified Fresh” critical score at the latter site. So the final tally could still climb even higher if turnout continues to over-perform expectations.
As noted, Zootopia 2’s opening weekend has broken lots of records already, including as the fourth-highest grossing first weekend of all time, hopping over The Fate of the Furious’ $541.9 million from 2017 to steal its spot on the all-time list.
Avengers: Endgame is still comfortably in first place with its 2019 opening of $1.2 billion, a figure that’s still hard to wrap one’s head around. 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War took $640.5 million for a distant second-largest debut weekend haul, and Spider-Man: No Way Home currently owns third place for a $600 million bow in 2021.
Elsewhere, Wicked: For Good is headed toward $400 million as expected, and is the only other film in the marketplace that’s really putting up notable numbers at this point. From here til the arrival of Avatar: Fire and Ash, there’s nothing else that looks to put up blockbuster numbers like this. So we can expect the Broadway adaptation to enjoy decent holds and leg out through the rest of the year after its momentum from back-to-back opening and Thanksgiving weekends.
Longterm, Zootopia 2 will inevitably top $1.1 billion, even with a measly 2x final multiplier. But a 2.5x final multiplier now gets the sequel to $1.4 billion, and a 3x would see the film approach $1.68 billion.
But here’s the thing – the first Zootopia has a final multiplier of 4.5x, so for example it opened to about $75 million domestically but legged out to $341 million by the end of its North American run (so, domestic $75 million opening multiplied by 4.5 equals domestic $341 final gross).
If Zootopia 2 gets even a 3.5x final multiplier, then Ne Zha 2’s $1.9 billion second-place position on the all-time box office charts this year (presumably behind Avatar: Fire and Ash, which shouldn’t have trouble hitting $2 billion based on tracking, buzz and history) is in jeopardy, giving Zootopia 2 an edge of just under $50 million.
Should Zootopia 2 come close to a 4x multiplier, however, then an eye-popping $2.5 billion is suddenly possible on the high end of outcomes, and that’s a figure that could even challenge Avatar: Fire and Ash for the 2025 box office crown.
My expectation with such a massively front-loaded opening is that we’ll see a lower multiplier than the first original film, and that the arrival of an Avatar sequel will cut into repeat business over December and into the New Year. Not that Zootopia 2 will suffer, as a likely 3x multiplier still gets it comfortably into all-time charts territory at #3 and a bit better sees it taking second place, all very respectable and beyond what anyone really foresaw ahead of Thanksgiving.
But Zootopia 2 now becomes a very serious challenger not just for second place on the year-end box office charts, but with this weekend’s debut and the power of the holiday season ahead (children out of school while parents are on vacation), there is a non-zero change that Disney’s animated blockbuster might leave Avatar: Fire and Ash in its dust. Even though Marvel won’t wind up in the top 5 or even top 10, Disney’s family of studios should have three of the top-five grossing films of 2025. Not a bad way to end the year for the House of Mouse.